


The Difference Between You And Me

by emoboyband



Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Anti-semetism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Time Travel, World War II, its got a happy ending i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2018-09-24 05:41:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 26
Words: 79,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9705710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emoboyband/pseuds/emoboyband
Summary: It's the year 2143. Mikey Way has the privilege of working for Flasch, a company that works with the newest technological innovation: Travelling. Time travelling, that is. One night, he receives a call from his brother, Gerard, who needs a place to stay, and refuses to answer as to why. And Mikey loves Gerard, he really does, but Gerard refuses his money and any other help, and Mikey just can't take it one night, and takes an unsupervised trip to 1923, and it's pretty sweet. But eventually he needs to get back to 2143, until he realizes: he can't.





	1. Chapter 1

"Heyyy, Mikes, you're clearly not here, I mean, obviously, otherwise you'd answer your Mez, since your favourite brother is on the other line. Anyways, just call me back, I'm in a bit of trouble here, and I don't know who to call other than you. Just call me back, don't call mom or dad, or anyone. I promis-"

Gerard's voice was cut off after that, the Message having hit its limit, but Mikey understood the content. His eyebrows furrowed. Why would Gerard make such a point of making sure that Mikey didn't call their parents? It wasn't part of his plan at all, but now he was considering telling them.

He shook his head, Gerard needed him right now. He tapped on his brother's contact, Gerard's smiling face flashing across his vision for a couple seconds before the face was in motion. He looked up and waved at Mikey.

"Hey!"

Mikey furrowed his brows. Gerard was standing outside, somewhere downtown Mikey didn't recognize. He was wearing a thin leather jacket, but he was visibly shivering. It wasn't that cold out, though, Mikey realized. It was only December, the leaves were just falling off the branches. Thanks to global warming during the past century or so, snow was a rarity.

"Where are you? Why are you shivering?" Mikey asked worriedly.

"Oh, I don't know, I just walked somewhere out here. Listen, I need a place to stay for a while, Mikes. I hate to do this to you, but I can't stay in my apartment anymore. I can sleep on the couch. I promise, at some point, I'm going to pay you back for however long I stay, I just don't know when-"

"Gee, it's fine. Can you get an address where I can meet you?" Mikey said, gathering his things to get onto the monorail.

"Um, yeah, I'm standing at the corner of First and Theodosia street."

"Okay, I'm getting on the monorail now," Mikey told him, grabbing his key.

"Oh, one more favour, Mikes? I don't have my card to pay for the monorail, could you possibly buy me a ticket for the way back?" Gerard winced, realizing how mooch-Y he sounded. But it wasn't like he could help it, all he had was a suitcase with some of his stuff in it.

To his relief, Mikey nodded and grabbed his wallet. "Alright, I'm on my way. See you later, and stay warm, dickhead. If you end up getting a cold, I'll end up getting a cold, and then I can't work and it'll screw everything up."

Gerard laughed and ended the call. He looked at his small suitcase, that contained only some of his clothes and personal belongings, as he had forgotten his card back in his apartment. Maybe he could go back and get it, after all, he still had the key card to the apartment and he technically was still a tenant until midnight. He decided that it was probably a good thing to have his money on him and started walking back in the direction of the apartment, trying to remember where he turned so he could find the building again.

As he did so, he wrote a message to his brother.

GAWay: going to get my wallet, if I'm not there when you get there, just wait a sec, I'll show up eventually!

He ran the rest of the way to his apartment, ignoring the wind biting at his face and the looks from passerbys. It wasn't all that odd to see someone running, after all, not everybody could afford the monorail. The people glaring were mostly upperclassmen who don't understand why someone would be running somewhere if everywhere was at most a two minute walk from a monorail station.

He got to his apartment fairly quickly, all the walking he had done on the way there wasn't actually that much if you weren't walking slowly like he was. As the corner he had been standing on got closer and closer, he could just see the monorail pulling up and a dozen passengers coming out, one of them he identified as Mikey. Immediately his face lit up. Now that he awkwardness of staying at his place had worn off, Gerard was excited to be spending more than an afternoon with his brother. Mikey was probably going to be at work for most of their days, but Gerard didn't mind.

As Mikey met his gaze and made his way towards him through the small amount of people either getting on or off the monorail, he realized how much he missed living with him. He genuinely considered Mikey as one of his best friends, not that he had many. In fact, he didn't know if there was anybody else in the world he would call his friend. Maybe Frank, but the nature of their relationship was complicated.

Mikey pulled him in for a hug, which he gladly accepted. He basked in the warmth his brother's body provided - he was fairly cold after standing outside for at least three or so hours. What time even was it?

"C'mon, let's go," Mikey said once they broke apart, taking Gerard's suitcase by the handle. "God, this is heavy."

Gerard chuckled. "I mean, it does have most of my stuff from my apartment in that tiny thing."

Mikey shrugged in response. They climbed on the monorail in silence, Gerard grinning the whole time. Sure, it was shitty that he had to leave his apartment, but he was really glad that Mikey was there for him.

"So what have you been up to?" Gerard asked him. "It's been a while since we've been able to hang out, sorry about that," he added.

"I think that's more my fault than yours," Mikey laughed. "Work's been a little hectic, you know, getting close to the holidays. Everyone wants to see their currently dead relatives, and it makes tons of paradoxes - you know, change one thing about your grandma's past and you may not be born. But it's nice knowing that people value that still." Gerard nodded. Mikey's job was complicated and he didn't even fully understand it, but it seemed really interesting. Gerard had only Travelled himself a couple of times: once for the free trial that everyone got when the technology first came out, which Gerard had used to see young Elena. He wasn't able to interact with her, simply existing at the same time as her made enough of a paradox for people like Mikey to clean up. He soon found out that it was unbelievably painful to see her, his grandmother who he loved so much, without being able to speak to her, to tell her how much she would matter to him.

He didn't Travel again for a while after that, but then he was hit by a certain bout of inspiration, and Mikey offered to take him to the Victorian era. Gerard wanted to draw a piece inspired by that time, and Mikey was going there anyways for work. Very few people Travelled that far back, because the chain of events between then and the present was so long that a mistake here and there needed a lot of work to prevent serious fuck-uppery.

Gerard didn't put down the pencil for days after that.

Then there was the centennial anniversary of the Mars landing, when Flasch offered a huge discount for trips to times one hundred or less years ago. Gerard went back to the 2050s, his favourite decade in art history. People were just getting used to the new technologies unveiled, trying anything really, and putting it out there no matter what. Gerard admired that. Visiting that time period was truly remarkable.

"So what have you been doing?" Mikey asked him the same question he had been asked. Gerard shrugged.

"You know. Painting, drawing, doing a whole lot of nothing at all. Not much," he sighed. Mikey nodded in understanding. Gerard worked as a self-employed artist, selling his work himself and taking commissions. While it was a much less exciting job than his own, Mikey sometimes envied Gerard because of all the free time his job gave him.

Gerard spent most of his time that wasn't devoted to his art hanging around at bars, mainly queer bars, picking up strangers whose names he couldn't remember. He told himself it was for inspiration, and that wasn't untrue, but in reality, he also did it for the sex, and though he felt no shame in admitting it, it wasn't nearly as artistic, but hey, sex feels nice, and he couldn't deny it. He frequented these bars often enough so that he knew who the regulars were, and steered clear of them. He was definitely not interested in seeing them again once they had parted ways.

However, there was one regular at the Trickery who caught Gerard's attention. He didn't know his name and had never spoken a word to him, but Gerard found himself oddly drawn to him - the word drawn being used here in more ways than lone. His dark, drapey hair and his millions of tattoos were so much fun to draw, though Gerard always got them wrong, since he didn't quite feel like memorizing them all, he wasn't that stalkerish. He never forgot to put the scorpion right under his ear, though.

He and Mikey made small talk for the rest of the trip to Mikey's apartment. When they got there and Mikey unlocked the front door, Gerard looked around the area, the both of them standing outside. Mikey was fortunate to have such a large apartment - benefits of working for Flasch - as Gerard's old apartment was essentially a glorified shoebox. His brother's apartment had to be at least the size of his old one.

In all honesty, Mikey didn't see the need for such a big apartment. Of course, he didn't complain to anybody, since there was no real problem, but he did occasionally feel lonely in his own home. His friend and occasional colleague Ray lived next door, and the both agreed that the space was unnecessary for an apartment only meant for one tenant. Ray worked as a tour guide for Flasch, showing people around time periods, and sometimes that meant collaborations with Mikey in order to clarify exactly what happened during the trip. Clients were always required to have a professional with them during their trips, but having someone like Ray with you meant you got to learn more about the time you were in. Because Flasch only paid for their employees's rents, they generally frowned upon more than one person staying in one of their apartments. However, Mikey wasn't too worried about the company getting mad at him - he did technically pay some of his own rent, if only to guarantee his landlord wouldn't kick him out for all the times he dented the walls, or smashed a tile in the kitchen.

Mikey pulled open the door, letting Gerard enter first with his suitcase. He had already been to his brother's apartment a few times, but it was mainly when he was helping him move in. Since then, Mikey had rearranged the furniture a little bit, which made the space look a lot more lived in. Gerard smiled in approval. Back when Mikey was paying Gerard to haul out his furniture, he had told him that the living room seemed almost too open, but Mikey had brushed it off as artist's patronizing. He was glad to see his younger brother had taken his advice.

He sat himself down on the couch, opening his suitcase with one arm while massaging it with the other. He had really crammed a lot of stuff in there, and it wasn't exactly light. The first thing he saw when he opened the suitcase was his art supplies - paint, paintbushes, pencils and his sketchbook but no canvases. They took up too much space. Mikey walked in and saw Gerard unpacking.

"Here, let me give you a hand. I'll, uh, get the sofa bed out," he said upon realizing that unpacking a small suitcase wasn't really a job that needed more than one person. Gerard uttered a 'thanks' towards him, putting his art stuff on the coffee table, making sure no things of Mikey's had to move. Mikey noticed this once he had the sofa bed about halfway out.

"Don't be afraid to just take the living room for your own. Like, you can move furniture around and stuff if that's what's convenient for you," Mikey said in between breaths. He hasn't had to get out the sofa bed since he moved in, and had almost no ide how to get it rearranged. Gerard looked at him while he spoke and laughed at his brother's incompetence.

"Here, let me-" he offered, the both of them pulling out the bed and grunting while they did so. Finally, after some determined pushing and pulling, Gerard had a place to sleep.

He rearranged the room around the bed. He put his art supplies on Mikey's desk, his clothes stayed in his suitcase until he had a better place but were now folded and looked proper, and anything else was on the coffee table he brought next to the bed as a makeshift bedside.

After Gerard was happy with his living room-turned-bedroom, he sat down next to Mikey on his bed and together they watched some TV. Some terrible crime show was on, and they were watching it ironically, critiquing and making fun of every single thing the characters said. It was what the Way brothers considered to be a good time.

Once the first terrible episode was over and a prompt showed up, asking them if they wanted to see the next one, Gerard turned to his brother.

"We should do something. Like, go out, have fun. I mean, it's our first day of being housemates again, we should celebrate!" He grinned. "My treat, too. I know this bar, we could get really drunk and embarrass each other." Mikey nodded at the idea.

"I'm down," he stated. Gerard smiled even bigger. He missed being stupid and young and going out into the town with his brother. "The only thing is, you can't let me get too drunk, I have work tomorrow. It's the evening shift, though, but just don't let me get, like, blackout drunk."

Gerard nodded. "Noted."

"Also, I'm ordering us a pizza, because I am not going out on an empty stomach." Mikey added, and Gerard nodded again, this time with a held back giggle. Their mom always used to tell Mikey not to go to work on an empty stomach when he was training for his job.

An hour and a half later, with pizza in their systems, the Way brothers headed out into the city. Specifically, towards The Killing Lights, the bar Gerard had been talking about. It turns out, there was a band preforming there that night. It wasn't specifically a queer bar, but most people considered it as such.

They were on the monorail when Mikey asked him. "What bar are we even going to? I don't think you ever told me."

"Have you ever been to The Killing Lights?" Gerard asked him. "It's a concert, venue, too. There's a band playing tonight, too." Mikey raised his eyebrows. He had heard of that place before - wasn't it a gay bar? Mikey wasn't opposed to the idea of going to a gay bar, but going to one with your brother was a little bit of an odd choice.

Gay bars, or queer bars, as they were more accurately called since they weren't exclusively to cater to gay people, were becoming less and less typical as the LGBT community and mainstream society merged more and more. Since the worst of homophobia and transphobia had been extinguished in the 2020's, they no longer really served as a refuge for closeted people, or a place where they could express themselves. Those places weren't needed anymore. The outside world was a good enough place to do so. Now, they were just a place for queer people to meet others like them, and straight or cis people often found themselves in such places, willing to experiment with the other culture.

Twenty minutes into their brother's night out, Gerard locked eyes with him. The boy he had been drawing for the past month. The boy from Trickery. The boy he so desperately wanted to know better, but couldn't let himself, because he would definitely see him again. The guy definitely recognized him from Trickery, too, he could read it on his face.

Mikey noticed his brother's fascination with this stranger and furrowed his eyebrows. Why did he seemed so entranced by him? He shrugged it off as pure fascination, but Gerard didn't seem to tear his eyes off the man. Mikey didn't recognize him, though the lights in the club made it fairly hard to focus on his face. Maybe it was his ink, he did seem to have a fuck ton of tattoos and Gerard always kind of had a fascination for them.

It only really got on Mikey's nerves when he was trying to tell this girl they had been talking to the story of how Gerard thought that he would have to marry Mikey when he was older, and Gerard wasn't even acting a little bit embarrassed. Mikey even added in a few false details with no defensive corrections from his brother. By then, the girl had laughed at the story and backed away, but Gerard didn't really seem to care. It was like he wasn't there at all.

Mikey waved a hand in front of his brother's face. "Gee? Hello?" Gerard jumped a bit at the sound of his name, then relaxed when he realized it was only Mikey, who sighed in relief. Finally, he had gotten his attention.

"Dude, you've been checking that guy out for like half an hour. Do you know him from somewhere?" Gerard shrugged unhelpfully, but stopped staring at him. Mikey didn't pry further, to Gerard's relief.

It seemed that the guy was leaving anyways, accompanied by a guy he was talking to. Gerard couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy at him.

-

"My brother's staying with me," Mikey told Pete as the two of them watched the Olympic Games in Nice, France. It was only three years in the past. Someone had inadvertently changed the winner of the women's triathlon, and the two of them had to fix it by attending the games. "He called me yesterday, all apologetic and shit. He needed a place to stay for some reason. I didn't pester him about it."

Pete was Mikey's typical partner in work. They worked well together - Pete was impulsive and daring while Mikey thought things through and held Pete back when it was necessary.

It was very often necessary. For example, Pete claimed that he and Mikey had to enter the actual sport in order to restore things with time, and he had this preposterous plan to go with it, involving them dressing in drag and entering as a team of trans women. However, Mikey reminded him that a team of trans women in the Olympics who meddled with the results of the game would be a notable event.

That was the thing: they couldn't interfere with notable events, and neither could clients. They could mess with tiny events as a means to change bigger ones, like accidentally bumping into someone and making them spill their coffee on themselves, ruining their outfit for their first date and embarrassing them so much that they don't get a second date, meaning they don't get married to the person they otherwise would have married.

Usually things like that were accidents made by clients, but that was the reason people like Mikey were hired to take care of that. They did things like handing someone a change of clothes after their coffee was spilled on them, or, in this case, attending the Olympics as audience members from the winning country, acting very passionate about the sport in hopes of giving her confidence and ensuring she didn't trip during the run.

"That's nice of you," Pete commented.

"He took me to The Killing Lights last night and wouldn't stop staring at this tiny tattooed guy," he continued. "I don't know why."

Pete laughed. "Mikes, you see, when a man loves a man very much..."

"You think?" Mikey asked. "I mean, I kinda thought so, but there was so much more than lust there, like they knew each other from somewhere."

Pete nodded. "I kinda get what you're saying. Sometimes, when you're really into someone-" he stopped himself there. He didn't know where that sentence was going. Luckily, Mikey seemed to. He hummed in understanding.

"Yeah, I guess. I just - I never thought that he would be... into guys. I mean, I just don't see him as someone who would be into anyone, but maybe that's just because he's my brother and I don't usually think about him in romantic situations," Mikey said after a moment of thought.

"Hey, you know what?" Pete started. "You and I and this brother of yours should go out tonight," he proposed, then noticed the disapproving look on Mikey's face. "What? We don't even have work tomorrow."

"I guess, but Gerard might not want to go out two nights in a row," Mikey explained, but it was more himself he was worried about. Clubs weren't really his scene.

"Oh, please. By the looks of it, hell probably jump at the chance to see this guy again. Plus, we never get to hang out anymore outside of work." They used to go to bars all the time after working, but then Gabe got fired, and he was such an extrovert that the team felt awkward going for drinks without him.

Mikey sighed. For once, Pete had a point. "Fine, but don't get wasted and make moves on strangers," he agreed, remembering what happened every time Gabe and Pete got drunk together and hit on everyone else in the bar, "it's weird."

"Deal," Pete said as the audience clapped for the righteous winner of the Games.


	2. Chapter 2

Gerard, unsurprisingly, was totally cool with going out again. Mikey sent Pete a Message to let him know, to which Pete replied with a picture of his face, all scrunched up and smiling, next to his hand, that had a thumb sticking out. He could have just used the thumbs up and excited face emotes, but Pete thought that they were stupid and instead just took pictures of his face with the right emotions in his expression. Mikey argued that if the usage of emotes was stupid, then so were his weird picture things, but Pete insisted that "nothing about my face could ever be stupid, Mikeyway."

They agreed to meet up at Leathermouth, a bar near Pete's place, at 8. In the meanwhile, Gerard and Mikey sat in Gerard's new room, sipping Capri Suns.

"What'd you do today?" Gerard inquired.

"Pete and I were at the last Olympics, then we had to interrupt some birthday party in the nineties," Mikey said nonchalantly, and it took Gerard a second to register that Mikey did this every day and going to the Olympics was not something notable for him. "What about you?"

"Well, I had to go to the store to get canvases and stuff, then I went to the park, saw a dog, and got unreasonably happy, then I painted for a bit," Gerard said, setting down his Capri Sun.

"Ooh," Mikey wowed. "Can I see what you painted?"

Gerard shrugged. "Sure," he agreed, standing up to go get the paintings from where they were sitting to dry. "I couldn't get many canvases with what little money I have left, so I used paper for some of them," he explained.

As he looked down at the paintings, Mikey's expression was one of utter admiration. There were four of them. Three of the four were in a similar style. Mikey recognized it immediately, it was Gerard's unique and somewhat old-fashioned way of painting. The lines were drawn imperfectly, and the colours didn't always reflect reality. Gerard was never much of a realist, and instead took the meaning of colours into consideration when he painted. People's skin, for instance, was never peach, mocha, or any colour variation that it usually came in. You could always find the trace of another colour hidden in there somewhere. He painted himself as pink that one time he did a self-portrait. He said it represented his weakness, his passion, and his fears. Mikey nodded along to the explanation despite not understanding. There were some things that he figured he would never understand about his brother.

The first of those three was a portrait of someone, someone Mikey had seen before, but Gerard's artistic approach together with the immense amount of faces Mikey had been bombarded with today led him to not be able to put a name to that face.

The next one was a drawing of a scorpion- or maybe a lobster, Mikey wasn't sure. It was blue, in any case. Again, Mikey felt that he recognized the animal, but had no clue as to where from. But where would he recognize a drawing of a lobster from? It wasn't like he saw much art, or at least not any in Gerard's style. He had seen tons of paintings from the past in the last week, all from different times. Probably more than Gerard had seen that week.

The last of the three that struck Mikey as absolutely Gerard, was a bottle of vodka, spilling over onto the floor. The drink itself, unsurprisingly, was a deep, violent red. Probably for the violence that alcoholism brings, Mikey thought. The label on the bottle was written in six languages, at least two of them were dead languages. Maybe to symbolize the timelessness of alcohol's control over humanity?

He shifted his eyes over to the last of the four - this one was on a canvas. It was a landscape, a city skyline. It kind of resembled the view from Mikey's apartment without copying it entirely. What struck Mikey as odd about it, though, was that every window had some kind of eerie, empty feeling about it. Well, they were all physically empty, but there was something else entirely. There was no yellow light radiating from any of them; only different shades of dull grey, varying from building to building or on the perspective. It was all chillingly empty.

Another thing about it was that there were no people in the streets. Not a single person, there were no cars, no one on a bike: just blatant loneliness.

Mikey looked up at Gerard, trying to read where these feelings were coming from. Gerard was shy, and hid his emotions well, but Mikey was completely lost trying to find how his brother could possibly be feeling this sorrow, this loneliness, enough to plaint such a depressing picture.

Once he realized Gerard wasn't letting up, he cleared his throat. "They're really nice," he noted helpfully. "I like the... uh, the colours."

Gerard snorted. "'S what you say all the time." As he realized how bitchy that sounded, he raced to cover it up. "I didn't mean it-" He sputtered.

Mikey shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, no, I get what you mean. I do say that every time. I really have got to learn to give more helpful criticism," he said, laughing.

Gerard smiled. "Yeah, you do."

-

Ms. Way waved at the image of her youngest son displayed on her screen. He looked up, saw his mother's face, and smiled at her.

"How you doing, kiddo?"

"I'm good. Been a bit busy, what with G-" Gerard looked at him from across the living room, a frantic expression on his face and making a cutting motion across his neck, signalling for him to not tell her that he was staying at his place. "What with job. My job, I mean. It's been hectic. I'm keeping up, though, no need to worry." Gerard smiled at him and gave a thumbs up. Nice save, he mouthed.

Donna smiled. "That's what I like to hear. If you ever need help, or someone to talk to, I'm always here, okay Mikey? I wouldn't want you to be stressed when you're saving the world," she winked. Mikey noticed Gerard roll his eyes. He wondered why he was so annoyed by their mother's pride in Mikey's work. He wouldn't be jealous, would he?

"I'm fine, really, mom," he brushed it off. He could always talk to him about it, but it didn't bother him all that much.

"Good. How has your brother been?" Donna asked, the same expression on her face but her voice shifting in tone.

Mikey lifted his eyebrows. "I don't know, you would probably be best asking him." Why would his mom ask Mikey how Gerard was doing?

Donna seemed to be shocked at his words, but tried to hide it. "Right, I- I was going to do that after I called you."

"You could have conference called us both at the same time."

Donna signed, sitting up. "Right, I suppose I could have. I just- I guess I wanted to talk to you on your own. Gerard... These days he's been kind of... not himself, have you noticed?" Both Mikey and Gerard understood the underlying message in what she was saying: she didn't want to talk to him when he was struggling. They shared a glance, and Mikey wished he could ignore the hurt expression on his brother's face.

"I guess. I mean, he just struggles with things sometimes, doesn't mean he's a different person," Mikey tried to be as un-accusatory as possible. The truth was that he was offended by their mother's words, but he didn't want to upset her.

"I suppose so," she mused, fake understanding oozing from the words. Gerard was glaring daggers into the image of her on Mikey's transparent screen. "Well, if you hear anything from him, tell me, okay? I worry about him."

No you don't, Gerard wanted to say. You worry about the perfect son you wish I was. You worry that he's never going to pull through, you worry that I'm going to be a starving artist forever. What if I'm happy like this? What if this is genuinely bringing me joy in my life?

"Sure thing," Mikey said, putting on a faked smile. "Take care, mom."

"Love you!" she said as she ended the call.

Gerard rolled his eyes again. "What the fuck was that about?"

Mikey sighed.

"No, seriously, what the fuck? How could she- how does she do that? How can she say that, think that, and not feel bad? 'I worry about him, Mikey, my oldest son isn't doing perfectly!' Bullshit. She doesn't fucking worry about me, not the real me," Gerard rambled, rushing the words out of his brain and into the world as fast as he possibly could because his mind was just fucking racing with rage. "She worries that I won't pull through, she worries that this isn't just a phase I'm going to come out of, saying, 'I really fooled you all there for a second!' She's such a fucking hypocrite. She says that she'll do anything for you, that she'll always support you, but when it comes to me? She can't even fucking call me! She's afraid that I'll answer and I'll be the same exact failure that I was last time she called me. When was that? Two, three months ago? And you know what she told me? Yoyu know what she had the nerve to tell me? 'Mikey never had problems like this. Mikey never did this to me.' I wonder if It'll always be this way, if I'll always be the disgrace, the Mikey prototype that they couldn't get to work just quite right," he spat, tears welling up in his eyes. Tears of what, he didn't know. Anger? Not necessarily incorrect. But also sadness, shame and guilt. He wondered if he could paint what he was feeling right now. It'd have a lot of black, probaby, black as dark as he could get it. Red, too, bright. Violent. And in lots of droopy shapes. He could almost picture the exact arrangement of the droops.

Mikey stayed silent, looking down at the floor. He should probably get a carpet sooner or later. He focused on his breathing to keep himself from crying. This wasn't fair, none of it was fair. Gerard was breathing heavily beside him, but Mikey didn't dare look up to see if he was crying.

Gerard looked at his brother for the first time sine the call and noticed his downcast expression. Having calmed down, he spoke up. "I'm sorry, it's not fair for me to blame you for that. It's not your fault and I wanted to get angry at someone else, and you were just there," he apologized, and Mikey could tell it was sincere. He gave a weak smile.

"You know, I was jealous of you in high school. You- I mean, you were a nerd, and so was I, but you were the cool nerd. The girls liked you. And you had that art thing going for you, whereas I... I mean, I read a lot. And sure you were bullied, but they bullied you out of jealousy. No one in their right mind would be jealous of me. I was bullied because I was an unlikable person. I had no clue what to do with myself once I was done with education. So when I got that invitation to the training program, it was like I got this amazing opportunity, and things were finally working out, but I didn't deserve it," he explained, purposefully not making eye contact although he knew that Gerard was looking at his face.

"You know as well as I do that I wouldn't have made it in your career," Gerard said. "I can't handle that kind of thing."

"Yeah, but looking at Pete and Ray and all of my other coworkers... They're such better people than me. They... They're just better," Mikey's voice wavered. "I get all this shit for free, for nothing. I don't even have to fucking do anything and people love me. But you have to work you ass off to earn an minuscule amount of respect from your own mother. It's ridiculous."

"Hey, hey, that's not fair. It's not fair to let yourself think that way. I don't get respect from mom because I don't want it. She's so incredibly biased and hypocritical, and that's a fault of her own. Not yours. There is nothing you could do to change that. And about her respect: I don't want it anymore. When I moved out, I tried so hard, making sure she saw that I was doing things her way, that I was living the way she would approve of. But sometimes I would value her judgement over my own, and it wasn't fair to live like that. I was... I was cooking myself alive just to give her something to eat. And the fact that your life happens to be the way she likes it, that isn't your fault. I know you like your job, and it just happens to be a job she likes you to have. There's nothing wrong with that."

Mikey made eye contact with his brother finally. Gerard breathed a figurative sign of relief. Not being able to see his reaction was eating him up inside and he couldn't even tell until now, when Mikey smiled at him with understanding.

"Yeah, I guess so. Still, I could at least stand up to her," Mikey sighed.

"You don't have to worry about that, Mikes. It doesn't bother me that you don't. I mean, what could you do, best case scenario? Get her to pity me instead of just pretending to? I've already told you, I know all she'll do is pity me if I tell her what's going on. I don't want the pity," Gerard spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully.

"Is that why you don't tell me why you left your apartment?" Mikey asked without thinking. The side of Gerard's mouth twitched, Mikey noticed, but his expression remained the same.

"I mean, I just needed a change, I guess. You know how it is, staying in the same place all the time. And it's not like I go outside every day on my way to the office. I just went stir crazy in there." His tone of voice had become much less serious from the last time he spoke, and Mikey picked up on that. He got the impression that Gerard wasn't being entirely truthful here, even when he ignored what exactly Gerard was saying.

Gerard had no problem talking to him about personal things, they literally just had a fairly deep conversation. They didn't ever keep secrets from each other. If one of them asked a question to the other, it would be answered. So why was Gerard lying now? It worried Mikey more than he would like to admit. Gerard had the right to keep thing from him, they weren't kids anymore. The fact that they still had such a close relationship was something to be thankful for. Mikey was just being selfish, that was it, he decided.

"Yeah, I suppose so," Mikey said, nodding his head, hating that he was lying to his brother even if said brother was lying to him. It just didn't seem natural to him, it was like it was encoded in their relationship they they didn't lie to each other. Not anymore, though, he reminded himself. They had grown up, and so had their relationship.

"So I guess we should get ready, we have to go in, like, half an hour," Mikey noted. Gerard stood up, shimmying his pants up his waist.

"You want me to do your eyeliner?" he asked, smiling down at his brother. The genuine emotion had returned to his voice, slicing the tension in the room in half like a guillotine.

Mikey smiled. "Hell yeah," he spoke, standing up and brushing his hands on his thighs.

Gerard giggled and went through his things on the coffee table/nightstand Mikey had arranged for him and found his makeup bag. He rifled through it before finding his eyeliner. He sat sown on the floor, Mikey following suit and sitting to face him, crossing his long legs and closing his eyes.

Gerard uncapped the eyeliner and pulled Mikey's eyelid to the side. He stuck his tongue out as he got to work on the eyelid. He knew Mikey liked it more on the bottom lid, so he didn't put too much effort into making the line on the upper lid visible.

"Look up," he said once he decided he was satisfied with his work. Mikey obeyed, and Gerard brought the pencil to his face. 

"Ow," Mikey spoke with not much pain. Gerard ignored it as he worked on giving him the grungey look he knew looked good on his brother. 

He finished rather quickly, though it felt longer for Mikey, who had Gerard's unsharpened eyeliner pencil poking at his eyes the entire time. Gerard scooted back to admire his work. Mikey saw him smile, and took it as the go-ahead to take out his camera function on his wrist commander and see it for himself.

"I feel like you get better at this every time," Mikey laughed. 

Gerard shrugged. "I get more experience every time."

"Just try not to poke my eye out next time, yeah?" 

"Fine."


	3. Chapter 3

They met Pete at the bar five minutes before they had planned to meet up. The Way brothers were just early because they had nothing left to do, while typically late Pete had simply misread the time on his Messenger.

"Hey, listen, the style of the numbers makes them hard to read," Pete tried justifying, but Mikey simply rolled his eyes.

"Gerard, this is Pete Wentz, probably the worst person you will ever meet," said Mikey affectionately.

"Did I ever tell you my full name? It's Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III," Pete informed him as he shook hands with Gerard.

"Yeah, I think I remember reading it on my communicator once," Mikey dismissed him. "C'mon, let's go in. I'm getting cold."

They stepped into the bar and instantly felt the music blasting through the speakers in every inch of their bodies. There were people everywhere, chatting, flirting, drinking.

"This place has the best drinks. I'm gonna order us some Leathermouths, yeah?" Pete said, disappearing towards the bar without waiting for an answer, leaving the two brothers alone. Gerard saw his brother stare after Pete, the side of his mouth curved upwards.

"He's greased," Gerard noted, nodding. Mikey snorted.

"He's anything but," he rebutted.

"I meant it as in cool, not calm. I bet it's even worse once he's got a few drinks in him," Gerard shrugged.

"Yeah," Mikey nodded. "I think we make a good team, though, at work. He's all chaotic and... I don't know, energetic, and I'm there to hold him back."

"But at the same time, he's there to... do whatever the opposite of holding you back is. Pushing you ahead?" Gerard finished for him. "See, he's not any better than you at what you do. Imagine if it were a bunch of Petes fixing the continuity of time." Mikey made a dramatically concerned expression.

As Gerard finished his thought, a smiling Pete came into vision, carrying three shot glasses with two hands, not terribly concerned about spillage.

He set them down on a table nearby them. "You can't get them anywhere else," he said. The Ways grabbed one glass each, and Pete raised his glass towards them. "Cheers," He said, before downing the shot. Gerard and Mikey did the same a second after. Mikey almost gagged at the unexpected bittersweet taste. Pete furrowed his eyebrows.

"Are you okay?" Pete asked him. Mikey swallowed the unusual drink, noting that he didn't find it particularly repulsive, just... odd.

"Yeah, I'm fine, it just... I don't know. I wasn't expecting it to taste like that," he chuckled earnestly.

Gerard nodded. "Yeah, it's really bold. I like it. I tend to go for fruity drinks 'cause I'm a wimp, but this is... wow."

"It's pretty out there. Maybe I should have warned you," Pete admitted.

Mikey shook his head. "No, it's fine, I kind of like the surprise," he found himself saying. He didn't like the surprise. What was he talking about? When did he start sucking up to Pete Wentz? Pete grinned. His face really brightened up when he smiled. It scrunched up Mikey's insides in a way he didn't understand.

"I want another round, how about you guys?" Gerard asked. Pete was about to protest about it being him paying, but Gerard was speaking before he could. "You've already payed for a round, it's my turn. Mikey?"

"Uh, yeah, I'll have another," he supplied. Gerard nodded and took off.

-

A few rounds later, and Pete was slurring his words and stumbling every time he walked. Gerard refused to drink any more after a couple drinks, and Mikey was too amused by Pete's state to drink any more himself.

"You wearing eyeliner, Mikeyway?" he asked Mikey, squinting.

"Yeah. Gee did it for me, he's really good at makeup and art and... stuff." Okay, so maybe Mikey was a little tipsy himself, but he might as well be completely sober compared to Pete.

"It looks really good on you. Fashion. You- you could be a model, Mikes," Pete slurred, giggling mid-sentence. Gerard raised an eyebrow, but stayed silent.

"Thanks, Pete," Mikey told him. 

It was then that Gerard interrupted. "We should probably go soon, Mikes. Pete's looking a little rough and it's getting kind of late," he told Mikey confidentially. Not confidentially enough, though, as Pete yelled a 'hey!' in response to Gerard's comment.

Mikey nodded. "Yeah, we- d'you think we should take him home with us? He's not in the best state to go home alone..."

Gerard shrugged. "It's your house," he simply said.

"Oh yeah!" Mikey hiccuped. "Yeah, let's take him home."

"I can year y'guys, y'know," Pete piped up from beside them.

"Yeah, we know," Mikey told him.

"Jus' checking," he mumbled in response, then wrapped himself around Mikey. "Take me home, pretty Mikey. Ha. Pretty Mikey." Gerard and Mikey exchanged amused glances before dragging Pete towards the door. 

-

Pete woke up the next morning in a bed that wasn't his in a room he only vaguely recognized. He checked under the covers for his state of clothing to see that he was fully dressed. There was also no one in the bed next to him and no warm spot to indicate that there previously was somebody there. So he didn't get laid, but why was he here?

He sat up, feet dangling off the edge of the bed. An ache in his head protested against the movement, but he ignored it. Clothes were strewn around the room, but they seemed to have been hastily pushed aside rather than thrown to the floor in lustful abandon. There was artwork on the walls, too. He looked at the Messenger around his wrist, a projection displaying itself above the limb. It was almost noon. 

Pete rubbed at his eyes, the last ounces of sleep leaving his body. He stood up, stretching, and walked towards the door. He opened it, hoping on the other side there would be some sort of explanation for what was going on.

A hallway greeted him, the white walls surrounding him. He recognized this place more. His feet guided him to a living room that seemed to be converted into a guest room. It wasn't like that when he was here whenever he had been over in the past in order to recognize it now. He vaguely registered a gross twist in his gut. He needed to sit down once he figured out what was up.

"Ah, you're awake!" Mikey greeted him. He was sitting on a bar stool at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. "Hope you slept well," he added, sipping something out of a mug. Coffee, probably, since the whole room smelled of it.

His words sparked something in Pete. "Yeah, yeah- we went down to the Leathermouth yesterday, eh? My head hurts."

"Yup. You should have one hell of a hangover right now, I feel pretty shitty and Gerard said I drank considerably less than you," Mikey explained as Pete administered himself a dose of ibuprofen via his Messenger. Mikey noticed what he was doing, and spoke up. "I took one unit only and I feel fine, you might want to take two, though."

"Thanks," Pete muttered and sat down . His stomach was really bothering him. "Right. Gerard was there. Kept us in check."

"Clearly not well enough," Mikey snorted.

"Hey, I had fun. I just- where's your bathroom?" 

"Uh, down the hall, to the left of the bedroom you came out of," Mikey informed him. Pete didn't have time to thank him as he darted to the bathroom. He lifted the toilet seat, heaving. Mikey winced at the noise, no longer finding his coffee very compelling and pouring it out into the sink. He heard the noises stop after a couple of seconds of feeling really grossed out, and went into the bathroom to investigate.

Pete was just pressing the flush button as he walked in, and Mikey thanked coincidence that he didn't have to see Pete's vomit as well as hear it happen. He reached into the cabinet for a facecloth and handed it to Pete, who took it gratefully.

"Sorry you had to have, like, a front row seat to that, I didn't have time to close the door on my way in," Pete apologized. Mikey shrugged. 

"'S fine. At least you didn't throw up in the kitchen. That would have been really gross," he said, grimacing.

"Yeah, Gabe did that once. Not cute," Pete explained.

"Yikes. Do you want some breakfast? I made pancakes about an hour, maybe an hour and a half ago and there are some left over," Mikey sympathized.

"Sounds great. Didn't know you cooked," Pete noted, slipping out of the bathroom after Mikey.

"I don't, not usually. But I thought that since both you and Gee would be eating here, I thought I'd do something nice for once," he smiled. 

Pete nodded, grinning. "That's sweet. Where is he, anyway? Your brother."

"He went out. Delivering a painting to a client or whatever," Mikey shrugged. He slapped two pancakes onto a plate and stuck it in the instant heater.

"He's a cool dude. Pretty greased. But there's just this- this aura surrounding him, and it's sad, you know? Could just be resting bitchface, though," Pete said as the instant heater dinged and Mikey took the plate out. He set it on the counter, expecting to put syrup or something on it, but Pete grabbed it instantly, shoving a piece in his mouth.

Mikey watched him chew with an amused expression on his face. Pete looked up, sensing that he was being stared at.

"What? I've gotta sober up somehow. I'm tired of this hangover already."

"Ah, I see. And you're going to cure your hangover with just those pancakes?"

"Yeah. They're really good, by the way. You could go on one of those cooking shows, Mikes. Do something really exciting," Pete remarked.

"Thanks, but I reckon I've got enough excitement in my life already. I travel back in time and fix shit every day. That's not exciting?" He reasoned. Pete quirked an eyebrow but went back to eating. "What?"

"Mikes, your life is seriously one of the most mundane ones I've ever seen. Don't get me wrong, you're a really cool guy, but if your version of doing something fun and new is work, you're not exactly Funs McGee," Pete defended himself. Mikey crossed his arms.

"We went out last night, that was new."

"Yeah, and you took like three shots and called it a night."

"I'm a lightweight. I was keeping you in check." At this point, anyone would say that they were arguing with each other, but if you asked either of them, they would say that they weren't being serious and that this didn't matter. Maybe it didn't matter as much for Pete as it did for Mikey, but Pete wasn't about to just lose an argument. Except it wasn't an argument. At all.

"Yeah, sure," Pete brushed him off. "Look, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, seriously, like, you know Gabe, he was really fun to be around, but he ended up losing his job because of it. His exciting job." Mikey hummed in agreement. 

"S you're not calling me boring, but I'm kind of boring, is what you're saying," said Mikey, and he tried to show Pete that it was okay if he said yes.

"Yeah," Pete admitted. 

"Okay," Mikey accepted after a couple moments of silence. 

-

An hour later, Pete was gone and Gerard had come home from delivering his artwork to his client. The both of them were sitting on the couch, reality TV playing in the background but neither of them paying attention to it as anything more than background noise.

"Do you think I'm boring?" Mikey asked his brother suddenly. Ever since his conversation with Pete, what he said had been on his mind, an endless echo.

"Depends on what you mean by boring," Gerard said after some hesitation.

"Answer the question, Gee. Am I boring or not?" he asked.

"You don't bore me, no. I enjoy your company, you make my life objectively better and all that. But I mean, you don't go out much," Gerard elaborated, hoping it would satisfy Mikey. He didn't want to hurt him, but he refused to be insincere.

Mikey took a couple of seconds to process his answer. "Remember what you said yesterday? That I make mom proud and shit while she feels ashamed of you?" he asked, and Gerard nodded. "Do you think I should try doing more stuff? Stuff like you do, like going out, loosening up? Would that make me less boring?"

Gerard raised his eyebrows. "Only if that's something you want to do. Is it?"

"I don't know," Mikey sighed. "I'm just thinking about how lame it is, doing exactly what my mom wants me to, following the rules, living this life."

"There's only a problem if that's not what you what to do with your life."

"Gerard, I have two people I talk to often enough on a regular basis to know me, and they've both told me I'm boring. I don't fucking know what I want," Mikey said, frustrated with himself. 

Gerard was taken aback by his swearing and sudden anger, but he concealed it. "How about you figure out what you want. Give yourself some time to think about it, and then once you're sure, just go for it. Don't let yourself hesitate."

Mikey considered it. "Yeah, actually. That sounds good," he said, calming down. "I don't suppose there's anything I could give you advice about?" he added, hopeful that maybe Gerard would open up now.

Unsurprisingly but disappointingly, his brother shook his head. "Nope, Mikes. Seriously, I'm doing fine. You don't need to worry about me." Mikey remembered what Pete had said about him, the "sad aura" he had. Mikey could see it. Even when Gerard told him he was fine, Mikey still wanted to help. It didn't matter if there was actually something wrong, there was still something inside, telling him that Gerard was suffering and in need of help. He was giving off such clear signs that he was trying to reach out and ask for help, but he always denied needing it. 

Gerard was a fully grown adult, though, and could handle himself. He didn't need Mikey checking up on him. If he said he was fine, no matter what, Mikey had to respect that he didn't want help and that there was nothing he could do. 

"Okay," Mikey chirped, nodding his head, and leaving the room. 

Later that night, Mikey was thinking. He came to the conclusion that he needed to do something, he just didn't know what. He wanted an adventure, he wanted the adrenaline rush. Something big and unpredictable. Something that would show everybody that he wasn't boring. 

He looked across his bedroom to his communicator, the one he slid onto his left wrist, the one that he didn't keep his Messenger on, for his work. It functioned like his Messenger, but the things he typed into it could be read at any point in time, as long as the person reading them had a device like his. The information was also sent using a different kind of wave than texts or photo messages. They were sent on greypaths, but because of the fact that you could read the messages at any point in time, it was impossible to automatically sort out the ones you didn't need to see. Luckily Flasch had the rights to the wave, meaning that only their Travelers could use the wave, but that didn't mean it was easy to access the messages from the people you needed to hear from. Every time somebody sent a message, they had to put their initials and date of birth in front of their message. It got to be pretty tedious, especially in an emergency, but Mikey had heard that they were working on a way around it and was counting on that to save him and his coworkers some time.

It was also the thing that transported the wearer to whatever time period they were traveling to. In order to do that, it had to be connected to the person traveling by the iron in their blood. It felt a little weird the first few times, as your blood was having strong magnetic forces exerted on it, but Mikey had gotten used to it. Gabe Saporta started a rumor two years ago that you could get high off the feeling, but it was quickly disproven, unfortunately for him and fortunately for Mikey.

Mikey picked the bracelet up. He loved his job, he really did. He couldn't imagine a job that he would like more. He got to travel back in time every day, and it still hadn't gotten boring after seven or so years since he started training. He didn't tend to complain about his job or anything.

But he needed something and he needed it now. 

He fixed it to his right wrist, but it didn't feel like him doing it. He neither felt himself moving nor did he feel himself touching his own wrist. The familiar jolt as it connected itself to his bloodstream was faint. He knew it was happening, he just didn't feel himself doing it. He didn't feel anything but the adrenaline pumping through his system, the high but faint buzzing in his ears.

Maybe it was just that he didn't want to feel like it was a conscious decision, that it was himself doing it. He didn't want to be in control of himself. Or maybe in that moment, he was so stressed and anxious that the feeling was genuinely caused by the rush he was getting. 

He registered himself opening the main menu of the system, pressing 'travel' on the screen that appeared, and rewinding the date: two hundred years in the past. 

Despite all of the feelings and lack thereof, he was definitely aware of himself when he pressed 'Start'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayy so i got the plot happening finally also im really pleased with this fic so far 
> 
> for the record i tried to make it clear but 'greased' is a slang word i decided to make up to make it seem like social customs changed at least a little bit lmao basically it means chill, both as in cool and as in relaxed
> 
> have a lovely day!!


	4. Chapter 4

Mikey suddenly reappeared in a street somewhere completely different from his own home. He took a look around himself, seeing some shops, some houses... and a bus, five metres ahead of him, coming right at him.

It was then that he felt the hands of somebody pulling him out of the way and onto the sidewalk. He watched the bus go along on its way, the driver shouting something unintelligible at him. He heard somebody laugh in relief beside him, and turned in the direction of the noise.

It was a woman, presumably the woman who had saved him just moments before, as she was still holding onto him, almost as if she were afraid he would run off into the streets again. Her hair was long and dark, and she was wearing a thick shirt that felt rather itchy. "I know the war is bad, but 'ya don't gotta kill yourself over it!"

She thought that he was trying to commit suicide. It was as good of an excuse as any as to why he was in the street all of a sudden, so he took it and nodded, not in agreement, but rather to show that he was processing her words. After all, he had just attempted suicide.

"What's your name, good sir?" She asked him. She spoke quietly and softly in her American accent. Mikey always loved the way people spoke when he travelled to old America.

He didn't answer her question. "Well, my name's Lindsey. I'm the mayor's daughter? Are you from around here?"

"Miachel. I-I've never been here before in my life," he answered. He realized he needed to get away from her as soon as possible so he could travel back home. It was a bad idea to go here in the first place. He could lose his job.

"Well then, I'll take you home with me, get you something to eat..." she suggested, and though it was exactly what Mikey needed not to happen, he knew he couldn't reject her. "Where are you from?" She asked as she guided him down the street.

"Far away. Far, far away," Mikey told her. He usually wasn't so vague when people from the past asked him about things, but it fit the character he was putting on. Usually, being specific made the details matter less. If he was secretive, his being there was more important to these people and he could screw things up continuity-wise, so he usually made up details like where he was from when people asked.

The woman, Lindsey, nodded like she understood. "You came here on one of those boats over there?" She asked, and Mikey nodded, going along with the backstory she was giving him. He didn't know what boats she was referring to, but it was better than making up an excuse of his own. "Do you speak English where you're from?" She asked additionally, and Mikey didn't know how to answer. Presumably he should say no, because if he said yes, she would assume he was from Great Britain, which he didn't think would make sense. Would it?

"No," he ended up muttering, hoping it was the right answer. Luckily, she nodded.

"I thought so," she told him. Then she stopped walking, the unexpectedness making Mikey trip a little. "Here we are," she said, gesturing to the house in front of them. It was definitely more put together than the rest of the buildings surrounding them, which wasn't saying much. It was also a lot bigger than most of the houses Mikey had seen since arriving, from what he knew about the houses built around this time it was probably built to house upwards of ten people.

Lindsey opened the door for him, and Mikey stepped inside. He could tell that they were definitely an upper class family judging from the decor, nevermind the fact that Lindsey told him she was the mayor's daughter.

"We house refugees like you sometimes," she explained. "I'll show you your room. You can stay here as long as you like." Which hopefully wouldn't be long, Mikey thought. If she left him alone finally, maybe he could just disappear back into his own time and she wouldn't have to worry about him.

She led him down a hallway and through a kitchen to a room with several mattresses lined up on the floor. She wasn't kidding when she said they housed other people, it seemed. Nobody else was in the room, which was lucky for Mikey, but it seemed that there were previously people sleeping on the mattresses, as recently as that morning. He wondered what time it was. It wasn't particularly early, nor was it anywhere near evening. Possibly around noon, he estimated.

"I think that bed in the corner is free," she said, pointing to one of the mattresses. "The rest of the people staying here are working or looking for jobs. If you can, we encourage you to get a job and give us at least some of your pay as rent. Do you understand?"

Mikey nodded, eager to get alone.

"Alright then. You should probably stay in here today, I don't want you going back into town and trying that again. We have some books in the study if you need something to do," she offered, taking steps towards the door. Mikey gave her a slight smile, trying to force her out of the room with his eyes. Eventually she left, closing the door behind her, and Mikey's eyes immediately flew to his left wrist, where he expected his Communicator to be, displaying a menu page for him.

It wasn't there.

He furrowed his eyebrows, turning it around, trying to find his damn Communicator. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't anywhere he couldn't see on his arm. He looked at his right wrist, lifting up his sleeve to look at it. And there it was, right above his Messenger, not doing anything as he looked at it.

Usually, these devices were controllable via eye contact. All you had to do was look at them and they would show their menu screens. Maybe it was because it was on the same wrist, he hoped, but something told him that when he moved it to the other wrist it would have the same problem.

His suspicions were confirmed when he unclipped it from his wrist and affixed it to his other, only to see that it not only didn't show him the screen at all, it also coughed out a couple sparks. If it doing that didn't guarantee his inability to go home at least for a while, he would have been laughing at it. Of course it would only do that when he needed it to show him that it still worked. 

Normally, when he Travelled for work, he kept a small tool kit with him in case something exactly like this were to happen. But since this was a spontaneous and unapproved trip, he had no such thing. And it wasn't like he could ask anyone back home for help either.

He forced himself to calm down. He would try to get through this alone and try to get back home. It might take a while, but surely he would be able to return eventually, even it were in several years' time. That thought scared him. He pushed it away. He needed to focus. He closed his eyes, as if doing so would put him in the mindset of somebody who knew more about this than him.

With the minimal knowledge of how the device worked, it was obvious that the cause of the problem was the interfering signals from the Communicator and Messenger. The first thing he should do would be to separate the two devices. He opened his eyes and looked down at his wrists. He had already done that. Awesome, step one out of the way!, he thought to himself, trying his hardest not to freak out. What to do now, though?

His mind came up with absolutely nothing. Considering the situation, he had no means to get the thing to work again. There was nobody he could ask for help. 

It was then that the utter loneliness of his situation hit him. There was nothing he could possibly do, no one knew his situation. He was navigating what may as well be an entire different universe, with no one at his side to guide him. 

He thought of what could be going on back in his own time. Had anyone realized he was missing yet? He had been there for less than an hour and it was pretty late when he decided to leave. Did the people at Flasch know he was there? He knew that they could track where their employees were from their Communicators, but obviously his wasn't working.

His Communicator was obviously working enough to transport him here, so would it have been able to track him while he Travelled? 

He blinked hard. He didn't need to be thinking about this. He just needed to find a way to get home. What would he do if he had access to the Help department? He would contact them, explain the issue. What was the issue? Well, the device let out sparks when he tried turning it on. It only sparked once he got it onto his other wrist, which meant that whatever he did to make it do that wasn't happening when it was on the same wrist as the Messenger. And with that information, what would they do? He tried thinking back to his training and initiation. He remembered what the room looked like when he was taught what to do in an emergency like this. It wasn't unlike the classrooms he had at school, but the students were different. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying hard to remember. It was no use, he knew it, but he still tried to pull the information out of thin air. Nothing he was taught brought anything like your Communicator blanking like this into consideration. Everything was all "if there's an issue, contact Help immediately," never anything about what to do if Help couldn't possibly be reached. 

He sat down on his mattress, tears stinging his eyes. He wiped at them with his palms. He just couldn't think of anything at all. He was in the shittiest situation he could possibly imagine, and nobody had prepared him for it. That was humanity, though. Nobody wants to even make a plan for the worst case scenario, nobody wants to think about it. At the time, it doesn't seem likely. Until it happens, and you can't do anything but sit and wallow in your self-pity. 

If they knew where he was, did anybody feel bad for him? Gerard probably would, he was sensitive like that.

Oh god, Gerard. Mikey had just left his brother all alone in his apartment. Would he still be allowed to stay there if Mikey was missing? Or would he be evicted? Why did he have to leave his own apartment in the first place? He never got a chance to find out. And if he didn't find a way out, he never would.

Jesus Christ, Mikey had o get out of there. The thought of Gerard having to live on by himself saddened him more than anything else about his situation. He was barely getting by even with Mikey's help, how could he possibly live without him? 

Great. He had been in the past for maybe two hours now, and he was already crying about missing his brother. He needed to distract himself. He stood himself up and opened the door, not caring that he was obviously just crying. He was human, humans cried all the time. Lindsey had mentioned a study with books. It had been years since Mikey had read an entire paper book. Hopefully he would be able to understand them, what with their old writing style. 

He wandered around the house, finding a bathroom and kitchen, remembering their place for later, before finding the study. There was a desk and several writing tools along with some paper at the center of the room. The walls were completely covered by bookshelves. Mikey approached the bookshelf closest to him, letting his fingertips trail over the spines of the books. Many of them were nonfiction volumes about anything, ranging from biology to law to the life of great philosopher Plato. Clearly somebody liked to read. He couldn't see how Lindsey's father could possibly have the time to read and buy all of these books, so maybe it was Lindsey who had a serious passion for books. 

He scanned over their titles. He wasn't much for nonfiction, he couldn't imagine how boring it would be to read about animals that went extinct decades ago in his time or laws that were no longer necessary due to the advancement of technology. He kept looking until he found a title he recognized: A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. He knew the story of A Christmas Carol, he had seen a theatrical adaptation of it when he was a child. He opened it to a random page and scanned through the words.

"Like the fabled rustic who raised the Devil with infinite pains, and was so terrified at the sight of him that he could ask the Enemy no question, but immediately fled; so,Monseigneur, after boldly reading the Lord's Prayer backwards for a great number of years, and performing many other potent spells for compelling the Evil One, no sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to his noble heels."

He didn't quite understand the context of it, but he understood the meaning of the words themselves. It seemed well-written and he supposed that if he tried hard enough he could understand it. Hopefully it would take his mind off his hellish problem. 

He walked out of the study in search of a lounge or somewhere he could sit down and read. He didn't want to go back to his room, he had stared at the walls in frustration too much already. He found what he was looking for, a room with lounge chairs and a fireplace, plopped himself down in one of the chairs, and cracked open the book.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,"

\- 

"Miachel? Miachel, are you awake?" A female voice called out to him. He opened his eyes. Oh right, Lindsey. 1934. Mayor's daughter. 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here," he said, rubbing at his eyes and forgetting he needed to talk like people normally talked at the time. Whatever, she probably wrote it off as English not being his first language, which, according to what he told her, was true.

She smiled at him. "Well, it's time for dinner. My father and the others are back, you should meet them."

He paused. They were probably going to ask him loads of questions about where he was from and he would have to make something up. But then again, Lindsey might have told them all to leave him alone. After all, he had just attempted suicide. 

He exhaled and got up out of the chair. Apparently, A Tale Of Two Cities was still in his lap from when he fell asleep, as it fell to the floor when he stood up. Lindsey bent down to get it for him. He thanked her as he took it from her hands. 

She led him down the hallway to the kitchen Mikey had seen earlier that day. As it turned out, past the kitchen was a dining room with a table too big to possibly have been built for only two or three people. They must have gotten it knowing that they would be housing many people at a time.

That made him wonder when they started doing this, letting people stay at their house. Did they just always do it or was it recent? They were in the middle of the second World War, so maybe it only started with the war. That would make sense, them taking in refugees who couldn't otherwise be let in. 

It was only then that he noticed the other people at the table. All of them were dressed in similarly dirty and tattered clothes except one, presumably the mayor, Lindsey's father. 

The man smiled at him. "Ah, so you must be Miachel." He seemed almost careful with his words. Mikey decided it was either just his personality or he knew about Mikey's alleged suicide attempt.

"Yeah. And you must be the mayor," he said confidently. The man nodded.

"Yes, but just call me Mr. Ballato," he said, extending his hand for Mikey to shake. Mikey took it, shaking it gently. Then he sat down at an empty seat. Dinner was already on the table, it seemed to be steamed vegetables with a soup of some kind. Why the vegetables weren't simply just put into the soup, Mikey didn't know. Lindsey sat down next to him and took his hand. The man next to him did the same thing. Mikey furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Why was everybody joining hands? Nevertheless, he just went with it. 

He got his explanation when the mayor started speaking, everybody else following along. 

"We thank you Lord for the food before us. In Christ's name, amen." 

It was a religious tradition known as grace. Mikey had never been a part of one, but he knew of its existence. 

Lindsey and the man next to him let go of his hands and started eating. 

Mikey sighed. His first day here was almost over and he still didn't know how to get out. Nevertheless, he served himself a bowl of soup.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi im so sorry this is so late it's been a really busy few weeks but i'm here i'm also 15 now hallelujah 
> 
> i promise i'll get back to posting near-weekly i just gotta do some other shit sometimes also shoutout to wattpad for being unable to know that i've typed another 500 words and just deleting what i wrote i need to switch to google docs

Pete was awakened by his Messenger buzzing at his wrist. He stretched and rubbed his eyes, then made eye contact with the device once he felt comfortable enough. It was work calling. It was his day off, wasn't it? At least it was only an audio call, so he didn't have to put on a shirt or anything. He clicked the green 'answer' button.

"Peter?" The voice on the other line asked. It wasn't his boss or anyone he recognized, but they knew his name, so it was definitely the right person.

"Uh, yeah?" He replied, furrowing his eyebrows. "Speaking, I mean," he corrected, mentally kicking himself for forgetting the formalities. Also physically kicking himself, though he only did that to make himself laugh later.

"There's been a mishap of sorts. You're partners with Miachel Way, correct?" They asked. Pete's eyebrows furrowed even more and his dazed expression fell. This was serious now. What had happened to Mikey?

"Correct," he confirmed, feeling completely awakened by his concern. "Partners as in we work together often, we're just friends outside of work," he clarified after a moment of silence, just in case the person he was talking to meant something else.

"Ah, I see. Miachel's Communicator is offline, do you have any idea as to why that would be?" The voice questioned him. Pete didn't understand.

"I-uh, no, I don't know. What does being offline mean?" He asked cluelessly. The person on the other side sighed.

"Can you come in to the office? This isn't something that can happen over a call like this." Pete rarely went to the office, he could easily Travel from his apartment. The only time he ever went there was for important business meetings and whatnot, which wasn't very common considering his role in the company. This must be important.

"Yeah, sure, I'll be there in 45 minutes or so," he said, getting out of bed.

"Great. We'll see you then," the voice on the other side told him before hanging up, leaving him time to get ready. Pete exhaled heavily, buzzing his lips near the end. It was always Pete getting into trouble and Mikey getting him out, not the other way around. What was it like being a responsible, useful adult? Pete had never even thought about that. He'd been careless about anything serious his entire life.

He pulled on some clothes, grabbed his wallet and headed out with a sigh. Was Mikey's mishap, whatever it was, a mistake or on purpose? Mikey wasn't the type to mess with something on purpose, but he rarely made mistakes either. It was always well thought-out with him, no matter if it was work or just plans to meet up. He was a logical, analytical type of guy, sticking to the rules.

As he rode the monorail, he remembered their conversation last night. Mikey was worried he was living too boring of a life. Maybe that was what drove him to do whatever it was he did. Pete couldn't tell until he knew what the company knew.

He was off the monorail after a few minutes of standing and holding on to the railing. It was rush hour and there were no available seats. He was the least bit thankful for that, though, because he was sure that if he were sitting he'd fall asleep and potentially miss his stop. He walked the two blocks to the Flasch office.

He rarely ever went to the office, as most of his work could be done with his own house as the starting point. The only time he was ever needed was for important meetings that couldn't happen through their Messengers. Those were rare, considering Pete's important but certainly not unique position. While the company relied on people like him to keep time's continuum in check, there was nothing significant about Pete especially, and he was known to be quite chaotic anyways. If they needed a Traveller, they were much more likely to call on Mikey or any of the others.

He pushed open the front doors to the office once he got there, and was immediately greeted by a secretary. His name tag read Joe. Pete realized he had never actually met somebody in real life called Joe. He was glad this guy was his first. He seemed like a trustworthy fellow.

"Mr. Wentz? Let me lead you to your meeting hall," he spoke. Pete nodded and followed him as he turned down one of the hallways. He was glad he was being pointed in the right direction, he had no idea where exactly he was supposed to meet the people who would be briefing him on the situation.

When they reached a door with a plate that named the room 'meeting hall 2', Joe opened it for him and Pete stepped inside. There were already several people around the table, some of which Pete recognized. There was the Correction Branch's boss, Patrick; Gabe, surprisingly; and perhaps even more surprisingly, Gerard, Mikey's brother, in addition to two others.

"Why don't you take a seat, Pete," Patrick gestured towards an empty chair. Pete complied, waving with a flick of his wrist at Gerard, who waved similarly back.

"So we're all gathered here today because there has been somewhat of a confusion pertaining when and where Miachel Way is and we are all integral parts of resolving this conflict," said a man with dark hair and big lips. Pete had seen him around the office, supervising meetings. "I'll start by introducing myself, and then we will go around and all say who we are and how we fit in to the story. I'm Brendon Urie, coordinator of the Technology Branch."

"I'm Patrick Stump, coordinator of the Correction Branch."

"I'm Gerard Way, Mikey's brother."

"I'm Ray Toro, Mikey's neighbor and a tour guide."

"I'm Gabe Saporta, an ex-employee and an old friend of Mikey's."

"I'm Pete Wentz, Mikey's friend and coworker," Pete smiled.

"Great. So, I'm sure those of you who don't know are wondering exactly what happened to Miachel. Well, obviously we don't know yet, that's why we're here, but here's what we do know: Miachel's Communicator was active at 1 P.M. last night for a brief few seconds before it went offline. He hasn't been seen since."

"Sorry to interrupt, but what does being offline mean for us?" Pete asked. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to know this or just didn't ever learn it.

Brendon smiled at him. "It means that the device wasn't picked up by any kind of signals. Even when turned off, these things still can be traced, because they give out impulses without the screen being on. His Communicator is likely not functioning at all or has been destroyed. There's no way to turn it offline by pressing a button or anything like that, as long as it's functional the Communicator is online. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes," Pete answered, nodding. "Very well."

"Alright. He was still in his apartment when his device went offline, and considering he hasn't been seen since, we hypothesize that he may have Travelled. Alone."

Pete's eyes went wide. Mikey Travelled without anyone else there? Even Pete was smart enough to know not to do that, to always have somebody else there with you when you Travelled. Sure, maybe Mikey was responsible enough to be able to do that without any incidents, but it was just common knowledge that it was dangerous and reckless.

"Were any of you," Brendon gestured to Pete, Gabe and Gerard "with Mikey within twenty-four hours of his disappearing? I know Gerard moved in with him temporarily, was he acting different when you spoke to him?"

Gerard spoke up first. "Yeah, he was in some kind of a mid-life crisis last time I spoke to him."

"Which was..?" Patrick asked for clarification. He was taking notes on his Messenger, hiding what he was writing from everybody else. Mikey supposed it was as to not distract them from what they were saying.

"I don't know, a couple of hours before he disappeared?" Gerard answered him. 

"And can you elaborate on the existential crisis?" Patrick asked again. 

Pete spoke up. "We were having a conversation - this was yesterday morning, we went out for drinks the night before and I stayed at his place - and I think I mentioned him being boring or having a boring life or something and he seemed really hung up about it. We had a sort-of argument about it but we didn't get mad at each other or anything."

"He asked me after you left if I thought he was boring, too," Gerard clarified.

"And what did you tell him?" Brendon asked as Patrick's typing became more frantic as he tried to keep up. 

"Shit," Gerard muttered as he realized something. What he said yesterday was probably a big influence on Mikey's departure. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, I just- what I told him probably wasn't the best thing to say, I'm sorry, if I had known I wouldn't have-"

"What'd you say?" Gabe interrupted harshly. Pete could tell he hadn't ever met Gerard and was already done with his hesitant aura. Patrick looked up from his Messenger. 

"I-I told him that if he wanted to, you know, spice things up in his life or whatever, that he totally could just do something impulsive. But I was thinking something more along the lines of dying your hair, not Travelling back in time without supervision!" Patrick smiled as he typed, clearly satisfied with the response. Pete knew that feeling, when something you've been stressing about finally goes somewhere in the direction of being taken care of.

"That's fine, Gerard. We're not here to blame you, or anyone, for his disappearance, we're here to find him and bring him back," Patrick reassured him. The corner of Gerard's mouth twitched upwards in appreciation.

"Okay, so so far we know that Mikey Travelled back in time because he thought his life was too mundane. Now, we ask the question: where would he have gone?" Brendon stated.

"Oh, there's one more thing, I think," Gerard interrupted. Brendon raised an eyebrow at him but let him continue. He cleared his throat. "Mikey and I... I haven't talked to our mom in a while, she's not a very good mother. She kind of just pays attention to Mikey, which doesn't bother me much anymore but Mikey... he thought it was really unfair, and he blamed himself for it a little. Like, in her eyes, he was the success and I was the failure, 'cause he had this really nice, well-paying, respectable job, and I was a self-employed artist. So he kind of blamed himself for having a life where she could easily be proud of him, you know? So I think maybe he wanted to show her that he was more than this job, in a way. That sometimes, he fu- messed up."

Pete nodded as Patrick went back to typing as quickly as he could. Pete definitely agreed with what Gerard was saying, he felt that it was true to who Mikey was even if he never expressed these feelings to Pete. 

"Okay, so back to my question: when and where would he have gone?" Brendon asked, eyebrows raised. Silence answered him. "Since he's offline, we have no way to track him. We can't even communicate with him."

"Could we Message him?" Gabe asked. 

"You could try, but you probably won't reach him if he's in another time," Pete answered him. Gabe turned on his Messenger anyways, typing out a 'where are u???' to Mikey. "It didn't work," he sighed disappointedly when it gave him a 'Message not sent'.

"Could we please get back to discussing where he could be?" Brendon butted in, annoyance in his tone. "It's kind of important to know where he is in order to find him."

"I don't think any of us have any ideas," Pete explained. 

"Then think of some!" Brendon raised his voice. "God damn it, I have a whole crew of techies ready to search for him as long as we give them a direction to look in. Just give me something, anything. We cannot have a worker missing without having anybody looking for him, if the media heard about this, it would make us look even worse."

"My brother is missing and you're concerned about the media?" Gerard burst out viciously. He was never a fan of the reputation-centered mentality that so many corporations had these days. 

"You're not even making any effort to help us find him! Don't come to me saying that I'm doing this for the wrong motivations, because at least I'm doing something!" Brendon retaliated, gesturing wildly as he spoke and standing up, his chair making a noise as it was sent towards the wall with his movement.

"Brendon, Brendon, calm down. There's no time for this." Patrick spoke, leaving his hand on Brendon's back and leading him back into his chair. 

"The Second American Revolution," Gerard suggested calmly. "He might be there."

"Perfect. I'll send a team to look for him there. You got a location?" Brendon asked, his tone still suggestive of anger but no longer outwardly aggravated.

"Nope. Well, I mean, in the States, but nothing more specific. He's always been pretty fascinated by that time period and as far as I know he's never been," Gerard shrugged back. Brendon nodded and typed something out on his Messenger, probably to the search party he was sending out. 

"So how are you looking for him if you can't trace him?" Gabe asked, shifting his position to make himself more accessible to the conversation.

"We basically drop subliminal messages in advertisements., something he's bound to see if he sees the messages but to anyone else seem odd at most. So like, we have this plan of a car sales ad for a fake place called "Mikey's Lost Cars". So people, who will have no clue what they mean by lost cars, won't call, and if they do, we just give them an automated voicemail, but if it's Mikey, we get him to tell us where he is," Patrick explained, since Brendon was preoccupied. Brendon nodded every once in a while, either at Patrick or just at whatever was happening on his Messenger.

"And if he doesn't see them?" Gerard said worriedly. "He might be somewhere with no way of seeing it," he said in response to Gabe's confused face.

"If he's anywhere near where you told us he'd be, he'll see it," Brendon said with a confidence Gerard wasn't sure was reasonable.

"And what if he doesn't want to come back?" Pete asked the question he had been thinking of since Gerard explained what Mikey had told him. If Mikey thought his life was too mundane, he might not want to go back to that life, especially since he probably knew that he would be punished for pulling this. Pete hadn't even thought to ask what would happen once Mikey was back. Would he lose his job? Would he have to move? And what about Gerard? Would he still be their mother's pride and joy after she knew what he had gotten himself into?

The silence that filled the room only helped to deepen Pete's concern. His eyes met Gerard's. They were the two people who knew Mikey the best, who cared the most about him. Pete could tell that Gerard was thinking the same thing as him, and they were both scared shitless of the consequences.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that one mistake of Mikey's could potentially have such massive reprehensions. Pete's heart ached, not only for Mikey, but for Gerard too. He was probably already lonely as it is, and now he had to live in the apartment, constantly reminded that his brother wasn't there anymore. Jesus Christ, it was only the first day and Pete was already mourning Mikey's loss.

"We'll find him," was all that Brendon said. If Pete wasn't afraid of letting out a sob if he opened his mouth, he'd point out that he didn't answer the question and demand that he do. 

Luckily, Gabe did it for him. "Answer the question, Forehead," he said through gritted teeth.

"Mikey will eventually realize that he doesn't want to stay in the past. He has people he loves here, his brother needs him," Brendon said, trying to keep himself calm despite Gabe's aggression. "And he's not accustomed to being in the past for long amounts of time. People will find him weird and he'll be ostracized. It'll become miserable to stay there eventually, and until then, we have to work on figuring out where the fuck he is. We find him now, and he finds us when he's ready. That's how this works."


	6. Chapter 6

Mikey made his way out of the house gradually and with a lot of hesitance. He had been there for nearly a week and still no one had come to retrieve him. He figured by now they had realized he was gone, but he seriously did not want to think about how Pete or Gerard were doing on their own. The though scared him more than anything.

He had spent his six days in the 1930's reading A Tale Of Two Cities (it was kind of boring, but it made Mikey's brain work, which he was grateful for) and talking with Lindsey whenever she was home. She was an interesting girl, someone compassionate and caring. Sometimes Mikey would vent to her about his worries and she would just sit there, nodding but giving no reason to assume she understood what he was going through. Mikey appreciated that. He hated when people said annoying things, pretending to care about his problems. Lindsey didn't necessarily care, either, about his brother and friends and job "back home", but she cared about Mikey and wanted him to be happy. So she listened. And that was all Mikey needed or wanted from her. 

Today was supposed to be the day that Mikey would go out and search for a job. Lindsey told him that he was brave for doing that so early, considering his situation. Mikey knew that she was referencing his supposed suicide, but took the compliment anyways. He was going to need all the confidence he could muster up. 

He was standing in his room, trying to find clothes that made him look presentable and fit him. Lindsey was concerned about his weight, thinking it came from under-nourishment when in reality Mikey had been that way forever. No attempts to fatten him up had ever worked. He had accepted that this was just how his body looked years ago. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt when none of the already-slim fit clothes made him look like he was drowning in fabric. He finally found a blouse that looked fine as long as he didn't put a blazer on top of it, tied a tie around his neck and pulled on the pants he was wearing when he came to the past. They made him stand out, but at least they weren't a dead giveaway that he was wearing somebody else's clothes. The other refugees had warned him that if the clothes didn't look like they belonged on his body he would be accused of stealing and refused any job he tried to apply for. 

He looked at himself in the mirror one last time. He looked awful by his time's standards. He wished he had Gerard there to help him with his outfit. He had always been good at fashion and things. The thought made his heart hurt. There was a possibility that he would never see Gerard again.

He quickly pushed aside the thought. If he kept thinking of Gerard and how much he missed him he would never get out the door. Mikey stepped out of the bedroom he shared with a dozen other men and made his way towards the entrance. Although now, for the first time, it was an exit. 

He took a deep breath and turned the handle. The first thing he noticed was how cold it was. They were in the middle of autumn, but the temperature was comparable to a winter's day in Mikey's time. He wished he had worn a blazer or at least something to cover up, no matter how stupid it looked. He looked down at the list another refugee had given him of places nearby that usually accepted new workers, though most of them were crossed out. He wondered what that meant, if the businesses had closed or if they were no longer accepting employees or if someone had just decided to cross it out. Nevertheless, he pulled out his map in search of the first option. Or, rather, the first option that wasn't crossed out. He had to squint his eyes to read it. Usually he could just pull out his Communicator to give him better vision, but since that wasn't working, he opted to struggling with reading the map. He couldn't remember the last time he had to read a map. Usually his Communicator would point him in whatever direction he wanted to go. He missed the effortlessness Travelling with technology came with. How did these people live without it their entire lives?

He finally located the place he wanted to go to and found the path he needed to take. Unfortunately, he was walking in the opposite direction of the wind, which really did not help his shivers. global warming was terrible, but it was good for something, at least. There was no way humans could have survived for much longer in these kinds of temperatures, he thought, before recognizing that was stupid and that obviously, since they had been doing it for thousands of years, they could definitely deal with a little bit of snow.

Mikey wondered if he would get to see snow while he was here. He hoped not, because that would mean he would have to be there for at least several months before being found. On the other hand, though, it would be amazing to see it. He had seen it before, when he Travelled, but never while he was living in that time period. Already he was feeling the difference between this trip and any other he had taken. 

He signed and checked him map again. It took him a minute to find his place, but the little barbershop that was hiring was about fifty feet behind him, if this map was to scale. He frowned and looked around. He could just see the classic red and white pole poking out through amalgamations of vendors. He made his way towards it, cursing himself for getting lost in his thoughts. 

Once he was in front of the front door, he double checked that it was the right place, and when he found himself to be correct, pushed open the doors and stepped inside. 

Immediately he felt the difference from the cold wind of the outside and the relatively warm building. A man noticed him and walked towards him.

"Hello kind sir, what can I do for you today?" The barber asked cheerily. He had an Italian accent, Mikey noticed, but not thick enough to be jarring.

"I, uh- I'm looking for a job and I heard you were hiring?" Mikey spoke, the end trailing off like as if he were asking a question. The barber paused, and Mikey wondered if he understood, if his futuristic accent was too incomprehensible to this man. 

He was about to repeat himself when the barber spoke again. "Magnificent, sir. Come with me," he said, leading Mikey to the back of the babershop where a door stood at the back of the wall. On the other side of the door was a room with a refrigerator and a counter along with a table covered in papers and a few chairs. It seemed to be where the workers would eat their lunch. The man took a seat, and so did Mikey, on the opposite side of the table. The man pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and a pen. 

"What is your name, good sir?" the man asked him cheerily.

"Miachel Way, sir," Mikey responded with a fake smile. He didn't quite understand the cheerfulness of this man but tried to match it anyways. With any luck, he would get the job if he seemed like a good worker for this man.

"And how old are you, Miachel?" the man asked as he wrote down Mikey's name. He spelled it Micheal, but Mikey didn't correct him in fear of seeming too eager or anything.

"Twenty-one," Mikey answered. 

"You look old for twenty-one," the man replied, scribbling a 21 onto the paper. He looked up. "Do you have any hairdressing experience?" 

"My brother..." Mikey trailed off. He knew that explaining what Gerard did would take too much time and he would have to lie in order to not be anachronistic, plus that wouldn't count for much experience. So why not lie in a way that would benefit him while making the response more simple? "My brother was a barber," he explained.

"I see." The man muttered, then paused. "Might I ask why you used the past tense just then?" He inquired. Mikey started to panic a little bit. 

"Uh, he was..." he trailed off, not knowing what to say to cover himself.

"Was he drafted?" the man asked sympathetically. Mikey nodded, relieved. It was always so convenient when people filled in the plot holes of his own story for him, since they usually filled in what they wanted to hear and spared Mikey the trouble of seeming like he was lying. "Mine too," the man signed. "He was a good man. Best I ever knew. He died in combat four months ago."

Mikey's heart swelled. He couldn't imagine knowing that Gerard was gone forever. At least while he was here he had hope that he would return to his own time and that Gerard was still alive, out there and creating things without him. At least Mikey hoped so. He admired Gerard's art so much, it would devastate him to know that he stopped doing it because of Mikey's disappearance. "I'm so sorry," Mikey sympathized. 

"No worries. I don't usually take anybody in unless they have experience, but there aren't very many men out there looking for jobs nowadays. It's always women, and you know how they get once every month. I don't know if I can let somebody like that near my clients' heads with sharp objects," he laughed, and Mikey chuckled too, despite being horrified at this man's casual misogyny. That was something he would need to get used to. He found it so hypocritical that these Americans were so opposed to the discrimination in Germany but won't hesitate on their sexist remarks. "And you're young, too. You can learn, and it's not like you're starting from scratch. I'd imagine you learned a thing or two from your brother. My only worry is that you will get drafted. You're the perfect age." He tapped the end of his pen against the table while looking down at his paper. "Do you have a passport or proof of I.D. on you at the time?" he asked finally, after a few moments of silence. 

"No, I don't have any," Mikey answered honestly.

"Can you bring me some for tomorrow? I would love to hire you but I need to be confident that you won't get drafted after a few months of work," he said, scratching his neck and beard.

"No, I meant I don't have any. I just came here six days ago by boat," Mikey told him. His eyes went wide.

"You're a refugee?" 

"Yes," Mikey answered. "Why, is that a problem?" He furrowed his eyebrows. Would this man reject him basted on his xenophobic ideals? Did he not say very proudly only a few moments before that his brother fought in the war against the Nazis? 

"It wouldn't be, if you had any identification. Sir, you are an illegal immigrant. Did you not consider this beforehand?"

"I guess not," Mikey chuckled, trying to remind this man that he was still a good person, willing that he wouldn't hurt him. "I don't think of myself as a criminal, sir. Just somebody who needed a place to stay and couldn't get one the normal way," he added, trying to humanize himself to this man who surely thought of him as a monster.

"That doesn't bother me, Miachel. Trust me, I believe that you have every right to be here since what is happening in your country is so horrendous." Mikey noticed offhandedly that he had never told this man what country he came from and yet he had already assumed he was from somewhere more impacted by the war than America. "I just... you should not have come here," he chuckled. "For Christ sake, Miachel, you- did you not consider that maybe applying for a job with no I.D. would not be a great idea?" He smiled stupendously. "I wish you good luck, but I'm afraid I can't hire you. The risk would be too great," he explained, shaking Mikey's hand firmly. 

"Thanks," Mikey took his hand. "I'm kind of living with the mayor's daughter, Lindsey... Well, the mayor, too, but I don't see him as often. How do you suggest I hand the subject around them?" He felt bad asking this man for so many favours, but he couldn't really get this advice anywhere else.

"Don't let the mayor know. He's a good man, but like how I can't hire you, he can't have you in this town. Let the daughter know, she knows how to help you. And don't go looking for jobs anywhere else. They will likely not show you the same charity as I did," the man said patting Mikey's back. Mikey nodded gratefully and made his way out the door and into the front room of the barbershop. He turned around when he was halfway across the room.

"I'm sorry, sir, i never got your name," Mikey said. He figured Lindsey would like to know who it was.

"Christopher," he told him with a smile. Mikey grinned back at him, turning his back and heading out the door. 

To his luck, the wind had slowed down a little since he had been in there. The walk back seemed to be much more pleasant and shorter than his journey to the barbershop. He hummed a tune in his head, something he had heard in a dream he had last night. He knew it was from a song he was listening to, but he couldn't place it. It probably didn't matter. 

As he walked, he thought of what he could do now. Obviously getting a job was out of the question. Maybe he could do yard work or something in order to get some money. He certainly didn't want to abuse Lindsey's hospitality by not paying it back. But was there really that much of a market for yard work? Most people probably wouldn't have the spare cash in order to pay for his work, and even then, did people really care all that much about their yards these days? 

In any case, Lindsey would probably know what to do. She knew this town, and she had no doubt known somebody in Mikey's same situation before now. Mikey was infinitely thankful he had met her. Without her, he didn't know how he would be able to survive being in this time for so long with no money, no documentation and nowhere to live.

As he turned onto the street the house was on, Mikey wondered if thinking about all of this was just stressing him out. Should he try to start anew in this time and place? Or did he have to cling onto whatever was left of his old life in order to retain his sanity? Then he started questioning if he should be doing that kind of thinking, and then he was pushing any and every thought like that out of his mind because holy cow he was already at the door and he had no idea what to tell Lindsey. 

Nevertheless, he pushed open the door, knowing that if he stalled he would never get inside and he was already shivering. He hoped that Lindsey wouldn't be anywhere she could see him from, giving him time to think about what he was going to say, but lo and behold, she was sipping something from a mug and reading the newspaper at the kitchen table. 

"Mikey!" She said excitedly, then frowned. "You're back early."

"Yeah, about that..." he mumbled, dropping eye contact and looking to the floor. Jesus, why did he have to doubt himself so much?

Lindsey didn't make a sound after he spoke, urging him silently to go on. "I talked to Christopher at the barbershop." He gave in finally.

"And?" she prodded, crossing her arms.

"He couldn't hire me because I don't have any documentation. I'm not exactly here legally," he went all at once. Lindsey kept her poker face, but Mikey doubted that she was really all that unchanged. 

"I see," she said. "Guess I won't be sending you out to work every morning then."

"Guess not." He agreed. 'Listen, if there's any way I could, like, get some money around here without having to get a real job, I'd be glad to help you guys out, financially."

"No, that won't be necessary. But Miachel, I don't have my father know that you're not a legal immigrant. I'm taking a risk by having you under this roof," she explained. 

"I know that," he said.

"I don't ask anything of you but to keep your mouth shut. Can you do that?" 

He nodded. "But if there's ever anything else..."

"Really, Miachel, I don't want you risking being caught any more than you already are," Lindsey said frustratedly. Mikey nodded again. She exhaled softly, trying to calm herself down. Then she looked at the clock, reading the time. It was barely noon. She turned back to face him. "Do you know how to play chess?"


	7. Chapter 7

"I don't, actually," Mikey admitted. It wasn't very commonplace in his time. He knew the general rules of the game from his general knowledge of the past, but he had never had a chance to learn. 

Lindsey smiled. "Can I teach you then?" she asked.

"Sure," Mikey agreed. He supposed now was a good time as any to learn how to play. It would probably benefit his logic and reasoning. Plus, it could pass the time better than rereading A Tale Of Two Cities.

Lindsey ran off into the living room, gesturing for Mikey to follow her. He did as she told him, smiling at her playfulness. Once he caught up to her, she was already pulling out a box and opening it to reveal a board and the black and off-white pieces. She set the board onto a game table in the corner, then sat down at one end. Mikey followed her lead, sitting at the other. She began setting up the board, piece by piece, talking about the different roles each piece had. 

"The front line is made up of pawns. There's eight of them, so they're not all that significant. They can move one space at a time, and forwards only, with the exception of their first move, which can be two spaces. They capture the other pieces by going diagonally..."

-

In the end, Lindsey ended up beating Mikey by a landslide. He kept forgetting how to capture the different pieces and what each one of them did. She reassured him that he would get better with time, and he told her that it wasn't all that big of a deal that he lost.

That being said, though, he challenged her to a game every day until he could beat her at it. She agreed, and after she left the room, Mikey rearranged the pieces to see how he could have prevented his loss. He was determined to learning how to play chess as best as he could. 

He had always loved learning new skills, ones he had been wondering about how they were done for long amounts of time. He loved knowing the mechanics of things he was passionate about, which he assumed was why Gerard loved makeup so much. It was like his painting, but there was no consequence if he ruined the piece by trying something new that didn't work out. It was art, but it wasn't a job like painting was. 

Mikey wondered if anyone he knew from his own time could play chess. Were they any good? If he had to guess one person he knew could do it, who would it be? Probably Pete. Pete had all sorts of hidden talents that were never brought up until they were useful. He was working on a project with him when it came up that he could pick a lock in under thirty seconds while blindfolded. Something he'd picked up while pining for a girl in high school who told him she'd go out with him if he guessed her locker combination. Mikey almost didn't believe him, but Pete was Pete, and there was no doubt in Mikey's mind that Pete would do something like that.

Was Pete any good at chess, or did he just know the rules? Mikey thought while inspecting the placement of his bishop and trying desperately to remember how he had used it. Was there an interesting backstory like the one for his lock-picking competency or was it just that someone taught him what they thought was a valuable skill?

Realizing he couldn't possibly figure out where the bishop was before, he picked the piece up and threw it to the floor in annoyance. He wanted to be good at this, dammit. That, and he was coming to realize how much he needed Pete with him when he Travelled. 

The thing about Pete was that you never knew enough about him. He was, for lack of a better word, a mystery. A puzzle with infinite pieces. He was a bunch of random facts and ideas and questions that didn't seem to make any sense to anybody but him. You had to listen to Pete, you had to experience him and take him seriously in order to get any kind of meaning from his words. He and Mikey, they were so different, but Mikey felt like he understood him. They had things in common, despite the obvious spontaneous/logical dichotomy. They both had ideas that were different from anything a normal person would think of. And their ideas were both disrespected and ignored. Mikey had always been put on a pedestal but no one had really cared about his deeper emotions. He understood how Pete felt, despite the fact that Mikey got attention and he didn't. The attention was never genuine. Nobody actually cared about Mikey, at least none of his teachers and definitely not his mom. 

Mikey missed him. If Pete were with him, he wouldn't be stuck trying to learn how to play chess because that was all that could keep him entertained. Pete knew how to have fun. Pete would make him laugh. Mikey hadn't heard something he found genuinely funny since he left. 

He looked back at the chess table. It was then that he recognized what he was trying to do: he was rebuilding himself in a way. He was trying to fill in the holes Pete and Gerard's absence left in his personality. How was a game supposed to replace his brother and his best friend? Tears stung in his eyes. He didn't want to cry, especially since he had cried too many times in the past few days. But he was filled with such heavy mourning, when the first tear spilled down his cheek he was still telling himself that he wouldn't cry, that he wasn't crying, repeating those words to himself in his head as he threw it back and choked out sobs escaped his mouth.

-

"How have you been?" Another refugee, Jason, asked him. They were both getting dressed in the bedroom. Mikey had to take time to get comfortable with changing in front of other people, but it was nearly just routine for him now. Mikey pulled his shirt over his head before answering.

"Pretty good. I'm getting better at chess." It was true, he was starting to be able to beat Lindsey if she played with some sort of handicap, like without anything but pawns, or only pawns and bishops, along with her king. 

"That sounds good. I would love to spend my days doing something other than selling meat," Jason chuckled. "But it pays well," he added. Mikey knew from talking to Jason occasionally that he worked as a butcher's assistant. Mikey never talked much to any of the others, but Jason was fairly chatty and Mikey didn't mind entertaining him. If he was any older than Mikey, it wasn't by much, although people from the past always seemed to be younger than they actually were, as Mikey had observed. It probably did him good to be talking to somebody other than Lindsey, too. "Why don't you have a job, if you don't mind me asking?" 

Mikey did mind him asking, although he had a response ready for if anybody asked him. "In my country, I was too young to work. I was supposed to work for my father once he passed away and for that to be my only job. I must stay faithful to my promise to him," he recited. Jason raised an eyebrow, but nodded like he understood. Nobody seemed to doubt anything people said in this time. Maybe because there was less reason to lie, or since so many of the untrustworthy people were out fighting in the war or something. 

"Well, I wish you the best with your chess," Jason told him before opening the door and leaving the room. 

"And to you as well!" Mikey called down the hallway so that he would hear. He finished getting dressed, then walked into the study and setting up the chess board. He stared at the pieces, trying to get his mind to work, make himself get better at playing the game. It was always hard to start practicing, the weirdness of playing alone was always nagging him. He looked up at the bookshelf, scanning the spines as a sort of distraction, when his eyes came across a chess manual. Of course, why wouldn't they have a book about chess in their massive collection? Lindsey was good at it, too, so she probably learned from the book. Reading it probably wouldn't help Mikey beat her, but he would become a better player if he were to be playing against somebody who didn't know any of the tricks in the book. 

He stood up on his tiptoes in order to reach it. The shelf was high even for someone as tall as Mikey. His fingertips brushed the edge and he pulled it down to where he could reach it. His reflexes weren't fast enough. The book tumbled to the ground and Mikey flinched back in order to ensure that it didn't land on his toes. It opened itself on the floor, onto a random page. Mikey grinned at it and at the prospects it held. He would learn so much from it, he could feel it. He reached down and picked it up, flipping to the back to see how many pages it had. The last numbered page before the index was 509. How long would it last him? At least a month, probably, maybe more if he tried to gain all the information he could. He loved knowing that he would know so much more by the time he finished the book. He loved knowing he could expect to impress Lindsey in the coming weeks. 

Later that day, when they were playing chess, Lindsey asked him if she should play with a handicap, and Mikey felt the anxiety and excitement welling upside of him as he said no. Lindsey raised her eyebrows but didn't question him. 

It became obvious to her once he did a two knights attack that he hadn't just developed these skills by playing game after game by himself. "So I see you've found the book," she said as he put her in a check. Mikey grinned and nodded. Lindsey moved her king out of the way of danger, but Mikey noticed that she left her queen vulnerable and moved his bishop in direct line of attack. "The thing about that book," she started as she moved her queen to take his bishop the same way he would have taken her queen. He muttered a curse under his breath. "Is that I've also read it. I know all the tricks. And I have more experience than you."

Mikey broke his eye contact with her to look down at the board and plan his next move. He smirked. In taking his bishop, she left her queen open to be taken by his knight. He moved, knocking over her queen in victory. 

"Dammit!" She exclaimed playfully. "That was stupid of me."

"It was," he teased. She rested her forehead in her hands, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Mikey felt pride at the fact that he could finally stump her. She moved her rook to the left with a huff and an offhanded "check". It took Mikey a second to realize why she seemed to be upset about it; she had just put him in check, hadn't she? But it dawned on him that he could easily move out of it diagonally and she wouldn't be able to get him again from there. It said something like that in the book, that putting your opponent in check isn't your goal and can actually be counter-intuitive, since it let them know where you are and then they would move out of it.

He moved his king, unintentionally putting hers in check from another side. "Check," he said once he realized. She grunted in frustration. 

"Michael Way, you are learning way too fast," she complained, moving out of her position. He quickly moved his rook to surround her along with his knight and pawn. She scoffed, moving away again, but Mikey met her with another pawn of his and putting her in checkmate. 

"Yes! Checkmate!" He exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air. Lindsey watched him, mouth open wide in shock.

"I can't believe you, Michael," she laughed. "Wow. You beat me."

Mikey felt like he was on top of the world, finally doing well in this time he had been thrown into. With this speed of progress, he could possibly be entering chess competitions - did they have chess competitions around here? Mikey could find out, and if they did, that would be a way he could get some money around here, and he wouldn't feel so indebted to Lindsey and her father for their hospitality. He could travel, too, he could see new places, if he really worked hard at this. He could make this work, he could do stuff with this. He didn't have to lose everything because he didn't have documentation or his brother or Pete. This could be his new life, at least until he was found. 

"You should be proud of yourself," Lindsey said, as incredulous as Mikey felt. He was proud of himself. Gerard would be, too, and he forced himself not to get sad reminding himself of his brother because he was in such a good mood and never wanted to interrupt this high. 

"I am," he told her, smiling. She stood up, patting him on the back and making her way out of the room. 

"But you only won because I wasn't expecting you to be so good. Next time will not be as easy," she warned him tactfully, with one eyebrow raised. He nodded, laughing silently. She stepped out of the room and Mikey exhaled. 

He could do this.

\- 

"So," Jason started the next day when they ate breakfast together. 

"So?" Mikey inquired, unsure what he was getting at.

"So you and Ballato's daughter. You're - not sleeping together, not yet, but there's something there, am I correct?" He asked, taking a bite of oatmeal at the end and raising his eyebrow. Mikey furrowed his. 

"No," he said. Lindsey was nice and he liked her, but he would never think of her in that way. 

"No?" Jason said, surprised. "Why not?"

"I don't know. She's not my type of woman," Mikey explained. He supposed that maybe they had a flirty manner of interacting with each other, but it wasn't like that. He couldn't ever force himself to think of her that way. The feeling just wasn't there.

"I thought for sure that was why you were allowed to stay without getting a job," he admitted. He piped up again as Mikey was about to tell him it just wasn't the way he thought of her. "But the way you two were acting around each other when I got home - surely you must be somewhat attracted to her? I mean, she's a fine woman, nice breasts..." 

"I just don't feel that way about her," Mikey blurted out before it got too weird. Jason shrugged, standing up to put his bowl in the sink and washing it. 

"If you don't take her, someone else will," he told him from over his shoulder. Mikey felt weird talking about her like this - she was a human being, and here they were treating her like an object, but he supposed this was just how men talked about women in this time. It wasn't unlike what the barber had said to him at the barbershop. 

"I'm not interested," Mikey told him for the millionth time. Jason shrugged and left his bowl and spoon in the drying rack. Son of a bitch, Mikey would probably have to dry it and put it away for him. 

Why wouldn't he be attracted to Lindsey, though? She was pretty and sweet and nice, and Mikey was pretty sure he was attracted to all of those things, but something felt like he had to hold himself back. It could be that he felt he couldn't experience attraction in this time because he didn't belong there, but he didn't think he felt that way. 

Mikey knew he was attracted to women. His entire life he had crushes on them, as well as people of other genders. Guys, too, he reckoned, even if he couldn't name a particular man that he liked. In another situation, would he find Lindsey attractive? Probably, he thought, but what was it about their current situation that made it so that he didn't like her that way? 

Maybe this was all just rhetorical, what did it matter that he didn't find Lindsey attractive? He still enjoyed her company and liked her as a friend, so why should he have to force himself to figure out why she wasn't attractive to him? It wasn't like he had to do this for all of his other friends, like Pete, he just knew that he wasn't attracted to them and that was it.

But there was a difference between how he felt for Lindsey and for Pete - maybe because he knew Pete for longer and didn't see him anymore. Pete was really nice, and charming, like Lindsey, but he had something else for him. His smile made Mikey feel like he was on top of the world. Gerard liked him. God, he missed hanging out with them. Thinking about Pete made him feel so happy yet mournful, whereas he was simply grateful for Lindsey's company and attention. 

He looked down at his cereal. It had gotten soggy from him not eating it quick enough. He groaned as he stood up and poured it down the drain. So much for self-reflection.

-

Within the next week, Lindsey had brought home five new people to live in the house. The bedroom was starting to get crowded, and there weren't enough chairs to seat all of them at the dinner table. Lindsey had to skip their daily chess games, apologizing profusely every time. Mikey wasn't all that bothered by it. He had five new people to get to know now. Three of them were all one family; a mother, father and their four year old son. The other two were single men, without work because of their wounds from the war. One of them fought in the First World War and was paralyzed from the waist down, and the other was a veteran from the current war, who had lost a hand and was no longer able to fight. Mikey mostly hung out with the couple's son, Ryan. He was trying to teach him how to play chess, which wasn't going very well, as the kid didn't understand all of the different rules. 

It was getting colder outside. On days where the jackets hadn't all been taken as people went to work, Mikey would go out on walks through the city. One of their neighbours would greet him every time, and they would have a small chat. Mikey felt bad for never remembering her name, but he wasn't sure if she had ever told him what it was, either. 

As the days went on, Mikey noticed that Lindsey was getting considerably more stressed out, and he saw the mayor way less than he originally did, but when he did, he seemed worried. Probably because of the new influx of refugees. It couldn't be easy, managing two dozen people living under one roof. He was unsure if he should ask Lindsey what he could do to help, since he likely couldn't do much. Still, he wanted her to know she could rely on him, even if he couldn't offer much more than moral support. 

He was sitting at his new favourite lounge chair when she walked in. 

"Hey," she said, startling him. He looked up at her from his book.

"Hey," he repeated her. They hadn't played a game in three days. 

"Do you mind if we just talk? I'm completely overwhelmed with everything," she requested, sitting down opposite him. 

"No problem," Mikey said, tucking in his bookmark and setting aside the book. "I'm all ears," he said, and she gave a weak smile. 

"Okay, so, where do I start?"

"I don't know, you're the one who wanted to talk to me," he said, giggling playfully. 

"I guess I just- it's too many people, you know? And my father's all concerned that we won't be able to let them all stay here, especially if people keep showing up, and we're not really equipped to deal with this many people, in terms of food and space available. Plus, what we're doing isn't really legal, or at least not for this amount of people, so we would have to set something else up in order for my dad not to lose his position. We're both so stressed out, and while I can handle it, he's the mayor, he can't afford to let this keep nagging at him," she explained, eyebrows furrowed. Mikey nodded, listening.

"Do you think anyone's close to moving out or anything?" he asked.

"No, not for a while. I don't blame them, though. We're all trying to get by. It can be tough to get started to live on your own." Mikey bit his lip. He didn't really have any experience in this at all. Sure, he was keeping Gerard with him, but he didn't have to worry about anything other than making sure Gerard was healthy.

"I think you should let yourself not worry about it. It seems to me that there's no immediate problem, and nothing you could do immediately to change anything. I think you should let things play out the way they do, and solve any problems you run into when they happen," Mikey advised. Lindsey nodded.

"Yeah, I think that's what's best. It's just hard to make myself think that way. Thanks for the advice anyway, though," she said, smiling and sitting up. "I think I have time to play a game, if you're up for it." Mikey's eyes lit up.

"You're on."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow things are starting to go the way i want them to
> 
> i still have no clue how long this fic will be tbh. i'm probably looking at like 30 chapters in total, but who knows? not me bitch!! the main plot i wanted to do is only starting now. writing isn't easy.
> 
> anyways have a good day the new paramore song is lit you should listen to it if you want


	8. Chapter 8

"He's not fucking there, okay, Gerard? Just fucking let it go," Gabe snapped, throwing the pencil he had been fiddling with onto the floor. It had been nearly a month since Mikey had disappeared. An entire month of sitting in the conference room every day and discussing where the fuck Michael James Way was. Brendon had stopped going to the meetings about a week into the investigation. He had other things to oversee, but still took Patrick's orders of where to send search teams to look for him. 

Everyone knew about it, or at least it felt that way. Everyone they knew, at least. Pete and Gerard's inboxes were full of people telling them they hoped they would find him soon. Gerard used to reply to them, saying he was grateful for the wishes, but Pete stopped him. It didn't help anyone and they only made him sadder. 

The Ways had been devastated. Gerard had a feeling that their mother blamed him for his brother's disappearance, but he had no way of backing it up. Still, she was happy that Gerard had an active role in finding him again. 

Gerard was the only one of the three people close to Mikey working on the case who was still throwing out ideas. He had proposed that maybe he just went back in time in his own timeline, to a memorable event, like his tenth birthday or something and had gotten stuck. Everyone knew that it would be extremely difficult to locate him if he was reliving his own past. It was one of the reasons why Flasch needed diverse Travellers, so that there was no chance one would run into their past selves. 

"Okay, let's hear your idea, then," Gerard spat back at him. He had enough of Gabe's pessimistic attitude. Gerard was just trying his best to find his brother and Gabe mocked him at every chance he had. 

"Guys, calm down," Pete sighed. It had been like this for a month: Gerard proposes a plan, Gabe critiques it condescendingly. He was completely and utterly sick of it. It was bad enough that they weren't getting anywhere with it, but even worse was that he had to deal with this bickering. He hated to pick sides, but often Gabe would just go out of his way to oppose Gerard. 

Patrick cleared his throat. "Thank you, Pete. Gerard, your idea is good and I appreciate that you try to find new ways of looking at the problem, seriously, you're very smart, but the probability that he would do something like that isn't enough to risk the paradox that would be created. Gabriel, you're here to give us new ideas and so far we haven't heard much from you and it's been a month. You don't really have the right to critique Gerard's ideas." Gerard smirked at those words. Gabe noticed out of the corner of his eye. It enraged him.

"Well, maybe I don't fucking want to be here! Maybe I haven't been giving any fucking ideas is because we can't ever fucking find him! There are literally infinite possibilities of where and when he could be and realistically, we can only ever make a small dent. I mean, even if we find him, say, in ten years, sure it would be fantastic to have him back, but he would have aged ten years! He wouldn't even be the same fucking person after living in the past for ten motherfucking years!" Gabe snarled, gesturing with his hands. 

Patrick pushed up his glasses. "Well, if we find out where he is and it turns out he's aged ten years, we can just ask him where he was ten years ago and fetch him from ten years ago."

"That's paradox behaviour," Pete pointed out. "If we take him out ten years before when he told us where he was, who would tell us to go fetch him, you know?" He explained once Patrick looked at him questioningly.

"You're right," Patrick sighed. "Well, I don't know what happens, but Gabe, the truth is that you knew Mikey more than anyone else we could get our hands on, barring Gerard and Pete. You're valuable to finding out where and when he is."

"Bullshit," Gabe snorted. "I hated that motherfucker." 

Pete's expression changed to one of confusion and betrayal. "Well, you sure didn't act like it."

"Of course I didn't. You had such a hard-on for him, I wasn't about to break your heart by telling out how much of a fucking loser he is," Gabe explained, smirking.

"Hey, that's my brother you're talkin' about," Gerard piped up. Gabe rolled his eyes, getting up.

"Whatever. I'm out. Wentz, call me if you ever get over him," he said as he left the room. 

"He can't just do that, can he? We need him for the investigation," Gerard said, concerned. 

"Legally, he can," Patrick shrugged. "He's not a witness or anything, and he said it himself, he didn't know Mikey all that well. He doesn't work here anymore, either."

"Son of a bitch," Pate muttered under his breath.

"Yeah, total dick move," Patrick agreed. "But we need something to give Brendon and his guys by three, so we have to get cracking."

Pete and Gerard groaned.

\- 

It was becoming increasingly more difficult, living with that many people. Mikey could see that Lindsey was struggling to keep up with so many people's needs despite the reassurance he had given her. He was feeling more and more lonely, despite living with twenty other people. Probably because within those twenty people, very few of them he could consider friends. Lindsey was often busy doing errands around the town and Mikey spent less and less time playing chess. Without her, it seemed pointless to even try. Who was going to cheer him on? The kid he was trying to teach had pretty much given up learning, as he complained that it was too hard or too boring every time Mikey tried to sit him down to play a game. 

He spent a lot of time wondering to himself about what was going on back in his own time. He thought about Pete a lot, about how much he missed him and liked him and wanted to be with him again. He knew that feeling, he had felt it for people many times prior. Usually he labelled it as attraction, that feeling, but he was so hesitant to do so now. Could he even be attracted to someone he would never see again? Or maybe the fact that he was two hundred years away was the only reason Mikey thought he was feeling that way about Pete. But no, Mikey knew he liked Pete, and was into him at least a couple of months before everything happened. 

The way Pete's presence took up the whole room and pushed any awkwardness out. The way he seemed to understand Mikey in a way only Gerard had been able to. His mind and his ideas and the way he always blurted out what he was thinking in hopes of making someone happy. That was the thing about Pete, he always tried to make people happy, as if that was his ultimate goal. It was so easy to laugh at his jokes, and Mikey loved the look on his face when he laughed at anything he said.

Maybe that was why he didn't like Lindsey; he felt committed to Pete, even if he physically couldn't be near him or communicate with him in any capacity. He wanted to be with Pete so badly that when he thought about it, it felt like he was burning up and his heart suddenly weighed about a thousand pounds. It made him tear up sometimes, thinking about how the only person who he wanted to date was two hundred years in the future and he likely wouldn't see him again in his lifetime. 

He wished he could just speak to Pete, let him know how he felt about him. There wasn't much doubt in Mikey's mind that he would object to going out for at least a date with him. Pete wasn't the kind of guy to turn something like that down, and if it turned out that they didn't work out, they would still be friends. Pete was someone he could live forever with, too, someone who his mother would be happy about him being with, and Gerard already knew him and liked him. 

He wondered if Pete and Gerard were talking regularly, trying to get to the bottom of what happened to him, or if they just acted independently. Mikey hoped for the former, since it was more likely seeing as the both of them would probably be bummed that Mikey was missing. He wondered if they were making up for him not being there, if they were developing a good friendship. The thought of his brother and Pete sitting down for a coffee made him smile. He really cared about both of their well-beings and thinking of them being somewhat happy in what must be a horrible situation for them made him happy. 

He was considering what they may be doing at that given moment while he ate dinner, surrounded by other people and uncomfortably squished between two large men. The mayor wasn't at the table, but Lindsey was. Sadly, she was at the other end of the table from Mikey as a result of him being the last to show up to dinner. He wasn't particularly hungry, so he ate little, leaving what he didn't want for someone else. The food was no longer enough to eat as much as you wanted and still have leftovers like it was when Mikey first moved in. There were arguments during dinner, too, over the food or sometimes things that weren't even related. Mikey suspected it had to do with the mayor not being there for most meals to keep the peace. 

Right now, though, the two men beside Mikey were arguing over the space, pushing each other, and, as a result, Mikey around. The one on his right was speaking so angrily that he spit all over himself, and the other was yelling in Mikey's ear. Neither of them seemed to be at all aware of the person in between them. He tried to ignore them, but it was becoming increasingly difficult as the insults escalated and they became more angry. Lindsey wasn't doing anything about it at her end of the table, pretending it wasn't happening and making conversation with the women who recently arrived. Eventually, he just figured he had to put an end to it, so above all the noise of the dining room, he cleared his throat and, and with the loudest voice he could do, yelled "Shut up!"

The room was immediately silent for a moment as they all looked at Mikey, who took a bite out of his turkey wing in favour of not having to confront them. The man on his left narrowed his eyes at him and Mikey pretended not to notice. 

"You've got some serious nerve complainin' to us, boy," he said, and something about the way he did so made him seem much more intimidating than when he was pushing Mikey around. "You don't even work and you're takin' up space at the dinner table!" 

The other man nodded. "Ay, seriously, what's with that? We all work our asses off every day for the right to live here and you get to stay rent-free! Hey, Ballato, I see you conveniently ignoring us, why's he allowed to stay without payin' a single cent while we gotta work?"

"It's uh, complicated," Lindsey gave, exchanging a glance with Mikey like they were both sick and tired of this, which wasn't far from the truth. 

"Bullshit!" The man exclaimed, slamming his fist on the table. "Can you give me a reason? Gimme one fucking reason he gets to stay without a job!" 

Lindsey shrugged calmly, and Mikey felt sympathy for her, he really did, but she was handling this too casually for the level of anger of these men. 

"I am a gentlemen, miss, and the only reason I'm bringin' this to you is because your daddy isn't here and we haven't seen 'im for days. But when there is a shortage of food, of funds, of space because of the amount of people in this goddamn household and one person in particular isn't paying their fair share? You kick their ass out! An' I get that you wanna be nice and all, but this guy is takin' our resources and isn't payin' 'em back, an' I think that's absolutely horrible, especially with the state we're in over here," the man on Mikey's left piped up again. 

"You can't expect me to just throw him out onto the street, you don't know how I found him. He was going to kill himself, men, and you can't tell me that's not a person in need. Who am I to expect anything back from him?" Lindsey explained, with more confidence now. 

"Look at him, he's doing just fine now, nevermind that he was about to commit when you found 'im," he argued.

"He hasn't fought yet, you could just send him into the army. They'll take him, he's in good shape," the one to the right of Mikey agreed. 

"An' we'll get our fair share of money from it, too. Seventy five each month, at least while in training," one of the veterans, who previously was not part of the conversation, joined in. 

Mikey didn't know how to feel about what they were proposing. He couldn't read anything on Lindsey's face either, so he had no way of knowing how likely she was to take their suggestion.

For one thing, he was finally getting used to living in this time. Having to fight in the war would be another entire world to get used to. However, he would be doing something that felt useful. It would probably make some huge changes in the timeline of the world, but he was already doing that by existing in this time. He wouldn't have to feel bad about being a burden on Lindsey, either. 

But would he even be allowed to fight if he didn't exist, according to the government? Would they just throw him in jail for immigrating illegally? 

He saw Lindsey lift her shoulders. "Dinner's over," she announced, and Mikey saw the two men beside him exchange glances Mikey couldn't read. It was kind of a smile, but not a happy one. Perhaps it was competitive, a 'this isn't over'. 

As everybody cleared out of the dining room, murmuring as they brought their platesd to the kitchen, Mikey noticed Lindsey staring at him in thought. He furrowed his eyebrows and pointed to himself, mouthing a 'me?' as if he was unsure she was looking at him. She nodded, her facial expression never faltering, and gestured for him to come over. He left his plate at his spot, telling himself to bring it later, and sat down in the now empty chair next to her. 

"Michael, I'm so lost. There just isn't enough food or money, and we can't keep this up forever. Charles was right, we need to get rid of one of these people, at least. And I won't lie, you not having a job isn't helping things. And I know that's none of your fault, but that doesn't mean it's not a problem," she explained to him.

"So you want me out?" He asked.

"No, I want you to stay. But I need someone out. I'm not going to kick you out without your permission, but I need to do something. Will you join the army?" She requested, and she pulled at all the right strings so that Mikey had trouble saying no to her. 

"I- I don't know. Can I even do that, without proof of citizenship?"

"Yes," she answered him. "And actually, if you join the army without being a citizen, they'll grant you citizenship once your duty is served." That would make living here after the war considerably easier, Mikey thought. He could come back once he was done and get a job, maybe go to school. But he would be putting himself in danger. There was a chance he would die. 

Though he supposed he would rather die in combat than from starvation in this place. 

"Maybe," he told her. "I'll think about it."

"Are you just saying that to say no without saying no or are you actually considering it?"

"I'm considering it," he clarified. 

"Alright," she said, still looking as pensive as before. "I'd tell you to take your time, but I really need an answer as fast as possible," she admitted, and got up from her seat, walking out of the room, taking Mikey's plate along the way.


	9. Chapter 9

Going to war was all Mikey could think about the next day. Every time he thought he was done overthinking all of the possibilities, another one popped into his head. How would he explain himself to Gerard if he ever saw him again? What would he do once he got back? Could he see Lindsey again after coming back? 

He thought until he had exhausted every option, analyzed every possible outcome. He had a piece of paper in front of him detailing what could come of every single possibility. None of them gave him a surefire answer as to whether or not he should go, but the more he thought about it, the more okay with leaving he became. 

He gave the sheet of paper one more look-over, reading his own notes, not even knowing what he was thinking of when he wrote down some of them, before standing up. He examined the wall for a moment while he thought some more. If he told Lindsey he was going to go, she would give him a couple of days to say goodbye and everything, right? Probably. He tore his eyes away from the suddenly very interesting wall and headed to search for her.

He found her in her bedroom, sitting on her bed and writing in a notebook. He knocked on the doorframe to let her invite him in, since her door was already open. She looked up at the sound, and he felt a little twinge of disappointment when her face didn't light up like it did when she used to see him. He dismissed it, though, he didn't smile either when he saw her. They both had other things on their minds. 

"Come in," she told him, sliding over to let him sit next to her on the bed. He sat down, she looked into his eyes, and he could see the frustration in hers. This was not a good time for her.

"I just wanted to tell you that I've decided that I'm going to volunteer to fight. In the war," he spoke softly. Lindsey's expression eased a bit and she relaxed.

"Thank you," she said gratefully. "Seriously, Michael, that helps us a ton. But I'm going to miss you, though," she added. Mikey shrugged. 

"I'm not doing much nowadays," he dismissed. 

"None of us are. it always feels like we're doing so much and nothing at all at the same time," she noted, sighing. 'I really hate that you have to go but we really need the money. You're really helping us out."

"I know. And I know I won't have enough money to send you letters but I promise if I get back I'll have a million stories to tell you and everybody else and everything will be fine since I'll have my citizenship and we can... I don't know, I'll enter chess competitions and become a chess god and beat you every time you try to challenge me." Lindsey laughed at that, and it felt so good to make somebody laugh again that Mikey couldn't help but laugh with her, trying not to think about the 'if' that was included in what he said. 

Of course he'll come back. He couldn't not come back. 

\- 

Pete was missing Mikey to the point of annoyance. He was actually annoyed with how much he missed him. And he was annoyed with how much he meant to him. 

Gerard was helpful with that, though. He was similar enough to Mikey that sometimes Pete could pretend it was him he was talking to, but he knew that wasn't the healthiest thing to do. He liked Gerard himself, too, though. They even hung out outside of their everyday meeting every once in a while. They were both being paid by Flasch for their work, so Gerard didn't have to worry about making a living outside of the work he was already doing. He had moved into Mikey's bedroom since his bed was much more comfortable and it just wasn't practical to be sleeping in the living room when there was a bedroom he could use. He didn't get rid of any of Mikey's stuff, though, he wasn't quite prepared to do that. And besides, what if Mikey came back? It would be useful to have those things still in the house in case that ever happened, or at least that was Gerard's reasoning. 

Gerard crashed at Pete's apartment sometimes when Mikey's absence got to be too overwhelming to live in his apartment. Pete was amazing at talking about Mikey. He understood how Gerard felt, even when he used analogies that didn't make sense. They could talk about other things, too, and it didn't feel like they were ignoring an elephant in the room. They had lives outside of missing Mikey, and that was something that was hard to remember sometimes. 

Pete was too into Mikey, though, he realized, for it to be purely platonic. This occurred to him when he was talking with Gerard over a huge pizza about drinking. He remembered how good Mikey looked when they went out for drinks, with eyeliner on and his jeans sitting on his hips in just the right way. 

"You know I'm into him, right?" Pete said casually after Gerard said that he didn't like the person he became when he drank or something, Pete didn't quite register it. Gerard took another bite out of the crust he was eating. 

"Ew," Gerard said, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, I kinda figured."

"You gonna get all big brother-y? Tell me I better not break his heart? Although I guess that would be pretty hard for me to do, considering," Pete theorized.

"Yeah," Gerard agreed. "Though he's probably into you too, if the way he acted that night we went out was enough to tell by. Then again, I don't really know how he acts when he's into someone, so he could just have been acting like he does with all his friends. He hasn't been a relationship ever, that I know of." Pete nodded, and they went back to talking about the ethics of alcohol consumption.

-

Mikey spent his last days of relative freedom doing everything he wanted to get done before he left - mainly sorting out his thoughts and ideas and what he wanted to be known before he left. He wrote down the rules to chess in a paper he would bring with him as well as a few tips and tricks he learned. He wasn't allowed to pack much at all, he had been told, but all he would really need would be souvenirs from home and he didn't really need reminders of a place he had been living in for less than two months. 

Finally, the day upon which he was determined to leave, came. He had his small booklet of notes in hand and Lindsey at his side. The mayor wasn't able to be there but sent his gratitude to Mikey for what he was about to do. He and Lindsey drove to the enlistment office, which was about an hour away, in relative silence. Every once in a while she would mention something on her mind and Mikey would listen, trying to memorize every detail of her voice and personality. He didn't know when he'd be seeing her again. 

When they got there, Lindsey offered to go inside with him. He politely refused, saying that she would probably be wasting her time that she could be spending on something else. She smiled and climbed back into the car. Mikey watched her drive away, trying not to cry. Then he turned around to face the office. It was fairly small and probably held about a dozen employees, maximum. He walked inside, pushing open the door to reveal an entry room with a front desk. There was a man a few years older than Mikey sitting in what appeared to be a waiting area, twiddling his thumbs. He looked stressed. Mikey tried sending him a quick smile when they made eye contact, but he didn't return it. Mikey frowned and turned towards the woman at the front desk. He cleared his throat. 

"I'm here to enlist," he announced. 

"Alrighty," the woman said cheerily. "And your name is...?" 

"Michael," he answered, then added "James Way."

"Can you spell that, just to be sure?" She asked, and he complied.

"Do you have any identification?" She inquired once he was done, copying this down on a paper on her desk.

"No, I'm not a registered immigrant," he explained. She nodded, checking a box. Then she looked up at him and smiled.

"Now just go down that hallway," she pointed with a pen that was in her hand, "You'll meet with a recruiter. Give this paper to him," she passed him the paper she had been writing on, "And good luck!" 

He waved his hand as a thank you and took the paper. He went down the hallway like she instructed and opened the door to the left. A middle-aged, tough-looking man sat at a table in the center of the room, though he wasn't facing Mikey as he was organizing his papers. Mikey cleared his throat so he would look up. When he did, he waved slightly, silently asking for permission to come in.

"Come in, boy, don't be shy," the man spoke in his loud, booming voice. Mikey gave him a smile in appreciation and took a seat opposite him, putting the paper on the desk. "Let me see here..." the man muttered as he took it and looked it over. He read it, looking confused and then nodding every once in a while. After he was done, he looked back up to make eye contact with Mikey. "So, Miachel. I'll be your recruiter today. We'll discuss your enlistment a bit, then you'll have a physical exam, then we'll find the job the best for you, and then you'll take an oath of enlistment. This will probably take..." he looked at the clock. It was eleven in the morning, "This will probably take until five tonight. Now judging from this form, I take it you'll want to start your training as soon as possible?" Mikey nodded. "Alight," he said, writing on a notepad. "So you're going to be fighting because of the Accessions in the National Interest. What that means it since you're not exactly here legally, you can participate in the war and when you come back you'll be a documented citizen and you'll be free to go." Mikey nodded. "Now, this may have an effect on how much your family is paid, but I don't see that as much of a problem since it's being sent to Ballato."

"How much of an effect are we talking?" Mikey asked. The whole reason he was in this situation was because they needed money, he didn't want them to be getting less than they were promised.

"Maybe a deduction of twenty dollars a month, if you're unlucky," the man explained. Mikey supposed that wasn't so bad, but then again, he wasn't certain exactly how much twenty dollars could get you in this time. 

They went over things like that for a bit and even discussed what branch Mikey wanted to go into - it was the army, since it required the most soldiers and the least background knowledge, before he was sent to the waiting room again to wait for a doctor to preform his physical. 

The guy he had seen waiting before was no longer there, to Mikey's relief. Thankfully it wasn't that much of a wait before a doctor was sticking his head out to see if there was anybody waiting or if he could take his lunch break. He waved Mikey in, and Mikey got up and walked into the room. It was fairly small, though it only needed to preform a handful of functions. He was weighed and measured, though he clearly was above the height required. As it turned out, though, he was only a pound over the minimum weight. The doctor laughed when he saw the result on the scale and told him he was lucky. Mikey grimaced. Now that it was happening, he didn't exactly consider himself lucky to be in this situation. 

He also had to confess if he had ever had any of a list of diseases, most of which had been eradicated in Mikey's time. Since he had no medical history, the doctor just had to take his word for it. They went over his health risks (which were next to none, the doctor was impressed), and then he was sent back to his recruiter, whose name was apparently Andrew, according to the doctor. He found it a little odd that he only learned this now, but he supposed it just never was relevant. 

When he returned to the office, Andrew had gotten out a few more papers having to do with the different branches of military. He sat down in front of the one for the Army, noticing that Andrew had made a couple of notes in the margins of the paper.

"So I passed the physical exam," Mikey explained, "I'm exactly a pound over the minimum weight."

"Thant's great," Andrew nodded, "I was honestly a little worried you wouldn't pass the minimum."

"Why wouldn't they just do the physical first?" Mikey wondered. "You know, so they could turn away the people who don't pass the requirements as soon as possible."

"We want to weed out the people who aren't old enough first," Andrew admitted. "Too many young men show up, far more than sick people." Mikey nodded. He supposed that made sense. "Anyways, now we're supposed to be choosing your branch, but I think you're already settled on the Army," he started. "However, I have to tell you a little bit about the others, too." He went on to explain the different branches and what they did, which Mikey didn't pay that much attention to. He was certain on joining the army, since he wanted to be getting as much money as possible for Lindsey and her people. 

"Yeah, I think the army is the best for me," Mikey said at the end. 

"Alright, then. You have to take your Oath of Enlistment at the end of the week with the other enlistees, so for now, you'll be staying with us until then. After your enlistment is complete, you'll board a train Camp Wood. That'll be your training camp for the next few months, until they deem you ready to go fight. During this time you'll probably want to get acquainted with your fellow soldiers, as you'll need a good team to not get yourself killed. I'm sure they'll tell you all of this later, but really, they cannot stress how important it is that you trust each other," Andrew looked serious. Mikey made a note of this for later. "Anyways, here are your papers. You can go over them. Ask the receptionist for a room in the pre-enlistment building, she'll give you a key."

"So I just stay in that building until Friday?" Mikey asked. It was Wednesday, not too far away from Friday, but it still seemed a bit... low energy. 

"Well, there are things to do, like reading or playing chess-" Mikey's eyes lit up.

"Chess?"

"Yes, chess," Andrew confirmed, looking confused at Mikey's excitement.

"It's my favourite, I've been playing it since I came here a month or two ago," Mikey blushed. Andrew nodded, smiling from the corner of his mouth at him.

"Well, you'll have plenty of time to play it this week. I think they hold tournaments for the trainees at Camp Wood, too."

"Awesome," Mikey said, giving him a thumbs up before standing up. Andrew stood up too, and shook his hand. Mikey uttered a dubiously appropriate 'thank you' before going out the door with his papers and getting a key and directions to the right building from the receptionist. 

His room was small, though he was lucky to have one to himself. All it had was a bed, but there was a common room with a kitchen and bookshelves and, as promised, a chess table. He looked through the bookshelf, not seeing anything that caught his eye, before going to the chess table. The pieces were of a much lower quality than the ones Lindsey had, but he didn't mind the chipped plastic. They were a lot lighter, too. He tried juggling them but they were too irregularly shaped. He wasn't in the mood to play chess at the moment, especially knowing that he would have way too much time to play the next day, so he took a book from the bookshelf and brought it to his room. Unfortunately, it was way less interesting than he anticipated, and he ended up falling asleep with it resting on his face.

-

The next day, he was woken up by a loud banging in the hallway, followed by a shout of some word he was still too asleep to recognize. He groaned and moved the book off his face. He was really fucking hungry. He laid in bed for a few minutes before his hunger got the best of him. He sat up, rubbing his eyes and making his way to the common room.

The smell of pancakes greeted him as he entered the room. There were several other men in the place, as well as a woman serving the pancakes. Mikey took his place in the line for the plates of pancakes.

"Cheer up, boys, enlistment's tomorrow," she said, noticing the downcast mood of the men. The one in front of Mikey grumbled in acknowledgement, to which Mikey chuckled. 

He made conversation with a few of the others over breakfast. One of them brought up how hard training was going to be, then another accused him of not being grateful for their opportunity to defend their country, and after that, Mikey ate his pancakes in silence, ignoring the shitstorm going on behind him . 

Afterwards, he made his way to the chess table, where he played a practice game before one of the men who also stayed out of the prior argument offered to play against him. They made small talk while they played, and Mikey had to lie a whole lot about his past in order to relate to some of the things he was talking about. 

"Checkmate," the guy said at the end, moving his queen to take Mikey's king from the last three sides he needed. 

"Dammit!" Mikey laughed, throwing his hands in the air in defeat. The guy stuck out his hand for Mikey to shake it, which he did. "I don't think I ever got your name," he added.

"Tomas," he stated. Mikey smiled. 

"I'm Micheal."

"Nice to meet you. Listen, I have some food in my room that I have to get rid of before we leave tomorrow, will you help me finish it?" Tomas asked him. Mikey smirked. 

"Of course."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaahhhh so sorry this took like a month to get up i had a little bit of a crisis where i had like 0 information on the history of like. what it was like to enlist for ww2 so this is probably going to be pretty historically inaccurate for the entire rest of the fic (it probably already has some inaccuracies but its definitely got some here) but i did the best i could!!!!! hope u don't set me on fire!!!!


	10. Chapter 10

Mikey spent the rest of the day with Thomas, occasionally splitting off to read but always getting bored and going to the chess table, where Thomas would eventually find him and they'd play a game.

Thomas was actually better than him at the game, he had apparently been playing against his dad since he was a kid. Mikey beat him one game out of four, which he didn't consider to be too bad, considering their skill levels.

Eventually, it was the day of their Oath of Enlistment. They had to be woken up at 6 for the ceremony, which Mikey was annoyed about, but he had other things to care about at the moment. They were given clothes to wear for the ceremony and sent to the bathrooms to change. The clothing consisted of a plan shirt with some slacks, which Mikey found way more comfortable than the barely fitting clothes he had from Lindsey's. They were fed and lined up outside at six thirty. Mikey almost forgot the slip of paper with his chess tips, but he was allowed to return to the room to fetch it, for which he was grateful. They were ordered alphabetically by last name, so Mikey was the last in line. At least he would be able to see what it was like before he had to take it. An officer was standing in front of them, with someone beside him holding the flag of the U.S.

"How this oath shall take place is that Officer Jones will recite the Oath. After he has finished, you will repeat those same words back to him," the man holding the flag explained. "We will start this procedure with Thomas Andrews."

Mikey watched Thomas step up, standing in front of the officer and put his hand on his heart. The officer cleared his throat.

"I, Thomas Andrews, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the orders of the appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

Thomas repeated it to him, forgetting the next line occasionally, upon which the officer would prompt him with the beginning of the part he forgot, and he would carry on. Once he was finished, he was sent back to the building where Mikey met with his recruiter to sign his final contract.

The rest of the enlistees did the same, and Mikey was starting to memorize the Oath. Once it was his turn, he was able to recite it without any mistakes or forgotten sentences, which made him feel superior, even if it was a result of no action he had taken. When he got back to the building he discussed the contract in, the secretary gave him his contract to sign. Mikey noticed that it was rather longer than the others sitting on her desk, but when he scanned over the five paragraphs about the Military Accessions which granted him citizenship when he returned from the war, he understood the extra page to the contact. He signed it, feeling confident in his comprehension of what was written. He was then sent to the train station, where he would board the train to his training camp.

The train was larger than Mikey would deem necessary for the amount of people it was currently picking up, but once he boarded the train with his piece of paper in hand, he realized that they weren't the only ones headed to Camp Wood. There had to be at least a hundred men on the train in total, although Mikey could only see bout thirty from where he was standing. There wasn't much space, if any at all, and the seats didn't look very comfortable, so Mikey decided to do what he thought was the good thing. Some people stared at him in confusion, but ended up realizing that left more free seats for them and accepting it.

What Mikey didn't realize, though, was that the train wasn't made for people to stand on like the monorails from his time were. When the train started moving, Mikey almost fell to the floor because he didn't realize it was going to be so unstable. He thought there was something wrong with the train, that it was off the rails or something, but looking at the others, who didn't seem to be startled, he assumed this was just how the trains were in this time. He understood why the other men stared at him when he chose to stand up. This was horrible. They didn't understand why someone would choose to stand up on a train, unless it was a last resort. He looked into the next car over to see if there were any available seats there. No such luck.

He sat down on the floor like some people near him were doing. His legs immediately felt so much better from not having to keep himself from falling anymore. He didn't know why he didn't realize that the trains from this time wouldn't be like the ones from his own. Was there a time equivalent of a language barrier? He bet someone had come up with a word for it at some point. He was sure Pete knew of it, since he talked to more of their coworkers, but Mikey had no idea what it would be. Maybe a temporal barrier? Time misunderstanding? Travel confusion? None of those sounded good. Then something dawned on him: generation miscommunication! Sure, it didn't completely make sense, since it was more of a misunderstanding than a miscommunication, but he wasn't prepared to give up that awesome rhyme for the coherency.

He bet that Pete would appreciate the term, if one didn't exist already. Pete would use it all the time, more than Mikey, because he would be so proud that Mikey did something cool. He'd make it super popular among the 'cooler' coworkers, and wouldn't let anybody forget that Mikey made it up.

Mikey ached for the way Pete always showed him he cared about him and thought he was funny or smart or whatever. He missed having Pete be his cheerleader, encouraging him even when it seemed silly. He missed the way Pete would look like he just won the Olympics when he made Mikey laugh.

He sighed. He hoped that he wouldn't get too emotional when he was training, since that could seriously hold him back. Although, having friends, or at least people he liked, even if it was for a short amount like Thomas, seemed to dull the way he felt like he had no business going through his life without Pete.

Would he even talk to Thomas when they were training? There were a lot of people on the train, and probably ten times more at the camp. In any case, he was bound to meet some people he didn't absolutely hate at training camp.

Training, however, was probably going to be hell. Mikey was never the athletic type. He used to have to do written extra credit for his gym class when he was in high school. He could run relatively fast when he had to, but that was just when he had an adrenaline rush. still, it got him to where he had to be. But there was no telling what actual training would be like.

He closed his eyes. He didn't deserve to be stressing so much about this so early in the morning. He closed his eyes, pretending to try to sleep, though he knew he wouldn't even get a micro-nap out of this hellish train ride.

-

Camp Charles Wood was much more camp-like than Mikey had anticipated. There were only a few actual buildings, the rest of the infrastructures being more tent-like than anything else. Thankfully, though, Mikey's sleeping quarters were in one of the buildings, so he wouldn't have to deal with accommodations that were too cruelly uncomfortable. He knew this because they were all sent in the general direction of their sleeping units upon arriving to be given a tour in smaller numbers.

It was then explained to him, to his great disappointment, that the indoor sleeping units were only temporary, since they prioritized the new arrivals and soon he would no longer be a new arrival. The tents, as uncomfortable as they were, were apparently worlds better than what he would be sleeping in on the battlefield in less than a year.

All of their training would be happening outside, in the nearly thousand acres of land that the base occupied. The officer showing them around then emphasized the importance of teamwork, since it was very easy to get lost in the forest and, later on, in the battlefield.

There was an indoor dining hall, too. Nothing fancy or anything, in fact, they were warned that the food was practically the same thing they'd be eating on the battlefield, just with fresh fruits and vegetables, occasionally, but Mikey's diet had changed so many times in the past month that he didn't really care what he was eating as long as it didn't make him throw up.

The tour concluded there, and the tour group were all brought back to their sleeping quarters. They were to be given bunks in alphabetical order by last name - again, Mikey was among the last to receive his bunk assignment.When it was finally his turn, the officer looked down at the sheet of paper in his hands and whispered something into the officer next to him's ear. The second officer looked at the paper, and furrowed his eyebrows.

"Way? Another Way?" The first officer asked around. Mikey raised his hand.

"Right here, officers."

"Oh," he murmured. "Over there." He was pointed in the direction of his bunk and told he was lucky - he had the bottom. He headed off to where he was sent, looking for an empty bottom bunk. He found one, with M. Way on the side of the top bunk and G. Way right next to it. He frowned. He didn't know any of his ancestors fought in World War II. If there really was someone he was related to that fought in the war, then he really, seriously pitied whoever was trying to manage the paradoxes at Flasch.

But G. Way could be anyone. It wasn't an uncommon last name, he even knew there were other people in his time called Micheal Way. There was no need to get all worried about it - he had already enough to worry about, what with upcoming training and fighting a fucking war in less than a year. He sat on his bed, which was as uncomfortable as he expected. He sat there for a while, thinking about the situation and what training would be like. He didn't know how long he sat there, or how he didn't see his bunkmate climb into the bed above him.

What he noticed first was the heavy breathing. Was his bunkmate- gross! But when he really listened to the breathing, he realized he sounded nothing like someone who was masturbating in a room full of people would. He sounded pained and exhausted. He wondered if this was normal for trainees to be like, but nobody else seemed to be so in pain. He stood up, checking to see what was up with the guy.

"Hey, what's-" Mikey started, coming face to face with his brother.

How the hell was Gerard here? Was Mikey having hallucinations?

But no, it couldn't be a hallucination. There were too many complexities and details: the "Another Way?" from the officer, the plate that said G. Way next to Mikey's, and now the guy who looked exactly like his brother who had been born two hundred years in the future.

"I, uh- Jesus, I broke my foot," Gerard said, looking Mikey in the eye. Mikey's brain screamed at him to look away - this was wrong, Gerard couldn't be here, there was no way this was real, but Mikey couldn't just ignore him.

"God, do I need to tell somebody?" Mikey asked, his panic levels at their absolute fucking maximum.

"No, medical already knows. They're out of bandages to splint it, so I've just got to sit out of training for the rest of however long. I've had worse," Gerard replied. "Hey, you're new, aren't you? I'm Gerard Way, I'm sorry the first time we meet I'm a cripple," he laughed, and Mikey winced internally at the use of the word 'cripple'.

"I'm Micheal," Mikey introduced himself. "Yeah, I'm new. Just arrived today."

"Great, so I haven't just gotten a bunkmate and not known about it. I've- shit, I've only been here for a month myself. Still managed to break a couple of bones, though," Gerard said, clearly trying to distract himself from the pain, though he was clearly wincing.

"Do you- wouldn't it be easier if you had the bottom bunk so you wouldn't have to climb up there every time you went to bed?" Mikey said.

"No, we're not allowed to switch bunks. It makes us harder to find when they need us," Gerard explained, looking down to the bottom bunk. Mikey's bunk was empty except for the paper on the barely-there mattress. Gerard, however, had a couple of trinkets stored between the side railing and his mattress. Mikey assumed they were things he gathered from living there for a month.

Gerard raised his eyebrows at the paper. "What's on it?" He asked, nodding towards it. Mikey blushed. This new Gerard - old Gerard? - reminded him so much of his Gerard. The real Gerard.

Although, who was he to say that this Gerard wasn't real? He lived and breathed and talked out of the side of his mouth, a trait Mikey wouldn't expect him to have since his Gerard didn't, but if this Gerard was a real person, he would have a completely different backstory - completely different memories.

"Rules. For chess. I learned how to play recently and don't want to forget anything if I ever get the chance to play again," Mikey explained.

"Oh. You'll probably be able to play again, I mean, we do a chess competition thing here. I've never participated, I don't know how to play." He looked back down from his bunk and squinted his eyes. "Your name's Way, too?"

"Oh, yeah," Mikey nodded awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.

"Nice. Maybe we're long lost brothers or something," Gerard laughed. Mikey's eyes went wide. Did he know?

No, of course this neo-Gerard didn't know he looked and sounded and acted exactly like his brother, who lived 200 years in the future and was a struggling artist and just recently moved in with him and had a fascination with some guy Mikey felt like he had seen before. It was a logical thing to say after you found out that you had met someone with the same last name and who kind of looked like you.

"Yeah, maybe," Mikey laughed along. "Listen, I'm going to-"

"Newbies, firearms training starts in five," a loud, gravelly voice boomed throughout the room.

"Um, yeah. I'm going to do that," Mikey excused himself.

"Alright. See you later, brother," Gerard called after him as he walked away.

-

Mikey stood, shivering in a line of men, waiting for instructions on what to do next. How the hell was Gerard at his training camp? It clearly wasn't the same person as his brother - Neo-Gerard had short, black hair, for starters, when the Gerard from Mikey's time was trying to grow out his hair that he kept dyeing bright red. And then there were the slight differences in their seemingly identical mannerisms that Mikey was sure anybody who didn't know Gerard, the real Gerard, the way Mikey did, would never notice.

It was almost insulting the way Mikey missed his brother, and how he was just given another one. As if Gerard could be replaced with some nearly perfect replica. As if the universe thought Mikey wouldn't notice.

He knew Gerard better than anyone else. Gerard would always be his big brother. He could never get to know this new kid the same way - it was just impossible. Gerard, his Gerard, had been there for him since he was born. He just met Neo-Gerard five minutes ago. How could they possibly be the same person? How could you possibly compare them?

Maybe he was just a casualty caused by Mikey being there. It would make sense, Mikey was screwing with a lot of people's lives - Lindsey, the mayor, everyone in that house, and then Thomas and everyone he had ever spoken to or looked at or waved at.

But what did that mean for the Gerard Mikey knew? Was he still in 2134 or was he actually replaced with this past version of himself? Or was he floating around in anti-time, stuck between the two? Mikey wished he had a way of knowing. He wished there was something he could do other than do his best not to die in 1934 at a training camp somewhere in northern New Jersey. 

He almost didn't notice when the instructor came in and was saluted by the group of trainees. Mikey was lucky he didn't forget to salute his instructor on his first day. That, he was warned, would result in huge penalty. 

He tried not to let the fact that a clone of his brother was his bunkmate as the instructor went on to introduce what they would be learning. Mikey had handled his fair share of guns, but knowing about the particular guns he would be using certainly wouldn't hurt. Not that he particularly liked them, he was definitely more of a pacifist, but the job sometimes required it. He had the conversation about the morality of weapons in time travel so many times with Gerard that he didn't mind holding them or shooting if the job called for it. 

The instructor finished his explanation and the group were all given guns to aim at the targets. Mikey almost dropped his when he was passed one; it was so much heavier than any other gun he'd used. He got into the position they were shown and readied himself.

"Fire!" The instructor called out, and everyone shot. Mikey's bullet hit the second innermost ring, he noticed. He looked at the late firers's bullets: compared to them, he seemed to have done pretty good. 

Maybe training wouldn't be so hard after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nice plot twist loser.


	11. Chapter 11

Mikey was very, very wrong in thinking training would not be as hellish as he had imagined.

Sure, he was good at shooting, but the physical fitness aspect of the training was proving to be difficult. Well, maybe 'difficult' was an understatement. 

He was forced to march around the forest for hours at a time, being yelled at when he tried to complain. At least that was a lesson quickly learned after he was instructed to take off his boots to march in the forest. That contained tiny, sharp rocks and mud and sticks. He even stepped on a bullet, which didn't hurt as much as trip him up.

He was getting better, though. He barely flinched when he was yelled at and the frequency of such happenings were definitely decreasing. 

The rifle drills were becoming more and more strict, though. Mikey was lucky he could keep up. Gerard wasn't so lucky. Mikey knew this because of the fact that Gerard was placed into the same group as Mikey for rifle drills on account of Gerard's lack of skill. Usually, trainees that arrived together were always in the same group, but Gerard was placed back.

The camp was very strict about chatting. It only ever happened during mealtimes or more casual drills. One time Gerard tried to ask Mikey for help with his gun and was sentenced to an extra hour of marching. Unlike Mikey would have, Gerard didn't dare to talk back to the officer. He later explained that he had already committed a deadly sin, he didn't dare to commit another.

Mikey was talking to Gerard more and more, slowly getting over the weirdness of talking to the clone of someone you had known your entire life. Once he decided he didn't hate the guy, this Gerard wasn't all that bad. There were still times he missed his brother, but Gerard in any form was purely unhateable. He could never be mad at the universe for long enough before Gerard was doing something that was just so Gerard-like that Mikey had to smile. 

Of course, Mikey's mind couldn't just leave him alone without worrying about something like that. For the lack of loneliness, it made up in missing and wanting and begging for Pete. Mikey thought of Pete (and his brother, too, but mainly just Pete) way more than was necessary. Although, Mikey would much rather be depressed about his absence than forget him. Mikey'd sooner step out of line during marching drills than let himself forget a single detail of that boy's face. And besides, it gave him something to think about during drills other than 'left, right, left, right', wasn't that something to be thankful for?

Another development in Mikey's life was Frank Iero. He had been there for six entire months and he sat with Gerard and Mikey at mealtimes. He was brutally honest and hilarious and gave the both of them such useful advice that they could never learn on their own (such as "don't waste your hot water (if you get any) washing your hair, they cut if off after six weeks" and "in the morning, pee in the woods, the bathrooms have lines that are too long and you really do have to pee every morning because they won't give you any time to in between drills after week ten"). Gerard obviously had a thing for him, which Mikey had no idea how it was going to work out at all. He had no clue about how accepted that would be. Obviously he knew gay people were shunned and incarcerated, but he also knew that typically, in situations where men were surrounded by their sex only, circumstances were different. 

If the same thing were happening in Mikey's time, he would have pulled Gerard aside and told him to make a move, but there was no telling who could overhear and how Gerard would react to Mikey encouraging him to pursue his homosexual interests. It was one thing to think something, but it was completely different when someone acted as if it was fine and okay. 

Mikey would just have to wait it out and see what happened. He had better things to focus on, like not dying of overexertion during training.

He had seen the chess table in the dining hall but just passed by it every time. He knew there were tournaments and everything when they had free time, but Mikey never had free time. His days were filled from waking to lights out with training and eating and generally taking care of himself. There wasn't a single minute he could use to slip into the dining hall to get some practicing done. He asked Frank if that would change, and according to him, he could get up earlier or use some of his non-training time to practice, and when Mikey informed him that he had none, Frank assured him that he still hadn't adapted and that soon he would have at least an hour of truly free time every day like he did. 

That made sense, Mikey supposed. Soon he wouldn't need to spend half an hour recovering from training every time and he could play chess instead. But did he really want to do that when he could just lie in bed anyways? 

Gerard told him that laying in bed was overrated. With his habit of getting injured, he spent enough time in his bunk already. Mikey wondered how he was going to fare on the battlefield, but quickly pushed aside the thought. He didn't want to think of Gerard, even if it was neo-Gerard, in such a situation. 

He may not have been his brother, but neo-Gerard was still a Gerard.

-

Mikey was having a rough week. On Monday, his marching group was given the delight of a surprise that they would have to carry bags of rocks on their shoulders while they marched from then on. Frank said he saw it coming when he complained about it, and Gerard said he dropped his bag on his foot on purpose when his group started that part to buy himself a few more weeks without it. 

As if that wasn't bad enough, Gerard and Mikey had been relocated from their oh-so-luxurious indoor bunks out to the tents, which got uncomfortably cold at night and the ground was even more uncomfortable than the mattresses (if you could even call them that) they were sleeping on. 

"Oh, calm down," Frank scoffed at lunch when Gerard and Mikey complained (they were starting to do that a lot lately. Frank said it was starting to get a little creepy, how they were always on the same page, thinking the same thing.) "It can't be that bad. My transition was fine."

"But how long were you sleeping in the bunks? A week? Two? We were sleeping there for nearly a month, Iero," Gerard retorted, and holy shit, had it really been a month? Mikey squinted his eyes to see the far away calendar in the cafeteria - yes, it had been almost a month since Mikey arrived. That was approximately a twelfth of the time between when he arrived and when he would be fighting, assuming he didn't stay back longer or get sent off earlier. Mikey shivered.

"Fair point, Way," Frank commented, pointing his fork at Gerard. "Aw, that doesn't work for you, since there's two of you." Mikey smirked.

"Exactly. We're invincible," Gerard said, pulling Mikey in and rubbing his knuckles on his head. Mikey didn't quite understand the meaning of this action, but Frank smiled at it, so Mikey laughed with Gerard.

"I swear if I didn't know better, I'd assume you two were brothers. I know I say it all the time, but it's crazy how alike you two are. It's like you've known each other your entire lives, look at you! Man, I feel left out," Frank said once Mikey was left alone and his hair put back into its relative place. Mikey felt himself go white. Luckily, neither of them seemed to notice, too engaged in their own conversation. "Not just the name thing, although that's surely creepy as hell. You both have that pretty boy face thing going on, and the pretty eyebrows and pretty eyes, and you've got some kind of telepathic communication going on or something, I can't believe you're not brothers."

"Yeah, it sure does seem that way, doesn't it," Mikey let out through -hopefully unnoticed- gritted teeth. 

"You think we're pretty?" Gerard teased, ignoring Mikey, and wow, they really didn't notice him at all when they were in their own conversation.

"Well, yeah," Frank said slowly and awkwardly, and oh my god, had they been sitting in Mikey's apartment back in his own time, Mikey would have left the place "to get pizza" and given them their privacy. They were so obliviously flirty, it felt like it was twisting Mikey's guts. And not in a cutesy 'aw-my-brother-found-someone-he's-happy-with' way. He wanted this to end. "You're very pretty, I mean, that's just common knowledge. You know the other guys always call you pretty, too? 'Oh, you were hanging out with those pretty boys, the Ways. What do you mean they're not related?'"

Gerard blushed, and Mikey would have gagged if he hadn't already been trying very hard to keep his nondescript meat and peas down. 

"Okay, yeah we're pretty, but there are plenty of people who are pretty, too. Doesn't mean we're related, " Mikey tried to seem nonchalant and not like he was trying to cover his and Gerard's tracks. Although, what was Frank going to do if he found out that Gerard was a version of his older brother from the year 2134? Gerard would probably have to find out before that, and that was definitely not going to happen as long as Mikey could do anything about it. 

Frank just shrugged in response, going back to picking at his beans. Gerard sighed. "I can't believe you're leaving us in a couple of months, Frank," he said, and god, would it kill him to just pay attention to Mikey for a second and get off Frank's dick? It was so aggravating when Gerard would take any chance he got to kiss Frank's ass. Granted, it wasn't a constant thing, there were times that the three of them acted normally, but when it happened that the two of them were being unnecessarily flirty, it made Mikey want to rip his eyes out of his sockets.

"Yeah, it sucks. I'm going to miss you. Both of you," and wow, he didn't include Mikey in his original statement? Gerard hummed sadly. Mikey had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes too far back into his skull at the forced sadness. 

"Okay, I'm going to go practice for rifle drills now. You two have fun," Mikey excused himself, throwing his leftovers in the trash before Gerard could ask him to scrape them onto his tray. He deposited the tray into the sink on his way out aggressively, making it clang against the metal of the sink loudly. He didn't have to look back to know the exact look on Gerard's face: the one he had when he knew Mikey was upset but he didn't know why and didn't know what to do about it. 

He could have made some snide remark about how "of course Gerard didn't know why he has upset", but he had clearly missed the mark on that one. He just went to the firearms area, stepping on as many leaves as he could on his way and admiring the way they crunched, more loudly than if he hadn't been stepping deliberately.

Once he reached his destination, he picked up one of the rifles silently. He technically wasn't allowed to be there, but there was already someone else practicing, supervised by an officer, so if he was found, he could just say that he was also under the orders of that officer. 

He shpt at the targets once, twice, three times, not really caring where the bullet ended up going. By coincidence, he hit the target a few times, but he didn't pay much attention to that. 

He shot out his anger, ignoring the officer and trainee on the other side of the firing area. He noticed briefly that this was great practice for reloading quickly, since that wasn't a skill he got to use very often when they did the drills since they all fired at once, but he wasn't there to practice.

He kept on shooting until eventually he ran out of bullets in the spot he was using. He no longer really felt like shooting, but he had to replenish the bullets in the small pouch. He took some from the spots next to his, evening them out so it didn't look like any was taken. One he was sure it didn't look like someone had been there, he turned back, though he didn't know where to go now.

He could go to the dining hall to make up for his absence, he could go to his tent, or he could go for a jog. Neither of the first two options were particularly appealing to him considering it would possibly mean going back to Gerard, though the latter wasn't exactly what he'd like to do with his time on a chilly autumn morning. 

He could also go for a shower, he realized, which sounded like a much better time than any of the aforementioned options. He took off in the direction of the showers, thrilled at the possibility of warm water.

There never seemed to be enough time to shower regularly, and when there was, the lines were long and he had to stand in the cold amongst semi-naked men. In addition to that, there wasn't much appeal to cleaning up when you knew you were going to get dirty again in an hour. Still, the prospect of potentially warm water running down his back and the fresh feeling afterwards was enough to get Mikey sprinting to get a spot. 

When he arrived at the shower area, there was exactly one of the fourteen showers that was not in use. Mikey checked a watch on one of the racks outside a shower. There was about ten minutes left of lunch, enough time for him to freshen up a bit. He jumped into the shower, shut the curtain, and began to strip. 

He dropped his clothes outside the shower, not caring that they probably landed on a puddle and are getting wet. He had marching drills next, he probably would be thanking himself in a few hours. Despite the autumn weather that was quite a bit colder than Mikey's body was used to, he always ended up sweating buckets by the end of the exercises. The added coolness from the cold water on his clothes could help him.

He turned on the water, hissing when the hot water greeted his unprepared form, but quickly getting used to it. There were only two settings on the showers at the camp: a tad to uncomfortably hot, and cold. Just plain cold. He put up with the uncomfortable heat for now, knowing that he would be switched to the cold soon. 

He looked down at his naked body, frowning. He hadn't gotten off in months, which was frustrating, and this would be the perfect opportunity to change that, but he didn't know how much he really needed it compared to how he needed the hot water to stay on so he could actually clean his body. Plus, in the past couple of weeks (i.e. since he arrived at camp), he hadn't much time to think about sex at all. He didn't really want it all that much, and plus, whenever he jerked off when he was in a bad mood he always got worse afterwards.

Instead, he opted for scrubbing at his legs with way too much vigour and scratching his back with his fingernails that were getting too long when he tried to reach every single spot on his back. He knew it was impossible, but he had his mind set on getting clean, and if couldn't do that, then he would just consider himself a useless failure and make his bad mood a thousand times worse.

He turned off the tap and stepped out of the shower after grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his waist. He noticed that most of the showers were empty, and that the guy with the watch had left since his watch was nowhere in sight. Mikey exhaled. With his luck, he probably missed the start of marching drills and he would have to make that time up after everyone else had left, which would be humiliating, plus the amount of yelling he would receive made his quick shower of moping definitely not worth it. He grabbed his wet clothes from the floor, stepped back into the tiny shower, attempted to put them on, and walked out into the forest.


	12. Chapter 12

Gerard was finding it harder and harder not to slip into the depression that felt as if it were on the other side of the cliff he was teetering on. Every day he was reminded of how Mikey wasn't there and they were getting absolutely nowhere in their investigation.

He could tell Pete was feeling it, too. They both loved him, just in different ways. The search for him had been pretty nearly called off. There were a significantly small amount of people looking for him, and it was rare that the two of them would be called into the office to brainstorm. The company just couldn't keep losing money to this. Gerard tried not to get defensive about that. Not everybody was related to Mikey, not everyone knew him like Gerard did. To them, he was just as significant as any other Traveller, plus the fact that he was costing them a ton of money.

He wasn't the most respected person around the office, either. People didn't like the fact that he made such an expensive mistake, which, again, Gerard tried not to get offended about.

He tried painting again in an attempt to keep himself from bursting into tears whenever he let his mind wander into where-the-fuck-is-Mikey mode, to little avail. Everything he painted just reminded him of what was missing and what he needed. He could never sell any of them, either. They all felt too personal and too difficult to grasp if you weren't him. Pete would offer to take them, he thought they were all beautiful, but Gerard denied any and all of his compliments.

"It's hard to be the optimist sometimes," Pete confessed to him one night where they were both feeling so crushingly lonely that they had to get together and chat, just to be in the presence of someone who wasn't themselves.

"Then don't," Gerard sighed. He knew what Pete meant, though it had never occurred to him that Pete was the optimist and he, the pessimist. It made sense, though, with Pete's encouragement and Gerard's distressing statements.

"I have to, though. Not just for you, I don't mean to insinuate that you, like, need me or something-"

"I do, though, it's fine," Gerard interrupted Pete.

"But I need to be the optimist, too. I have to pretend to be all happy-go-lucky and shit or else the opposite'll just consume me," he mumbled. "As pretentious as that sounds," he laughed after a brief pause. Gerard nodded. "You know what I mean? I have to show myself that there is a bright side, even if I don't believe it."

"Do you need me to stop being so dark and depressing then?" Gerard asked. It wasn't an offer. Gerard would rather never talk to Pete again than have to suffocate on how much he missed his brother.

"No," Pete said wistfully. "No, I need to be aware of the reality, too. It just gets tiring, trying to search for hope sometimes. It feels like it's getting harder and harder to find it, which makes it feel like there's less and less of it there, if that makes any sense." Gerard nodded.

"Do you think he's gone forever?" Gerard asked, fighting back the tears in his eyes. Pete shook his head.

"Do you believe in destiny?" Pete said back.

"Not really," Gerard mumbled.

"Well, I kind of do. And if you can convince yourself that, like, he had a lot of unfinished business here, and it would be unfair for him to just... leave, then you can probably keep hanging onto that," Pete suggested, feeling himself tear up, too.

Gerard choked out a sob, letting his head lean into Pete's armpit. Luckily, Pete had better hygiene than Gerard, so it wasn't as unpleasant as his own. Pete ran his fingers through Gerard's hair comfortingly, letting a tear roll down his cheek.

"He just-" Gerard hiccuped, "He deserves to be happy and to be here with us and we deserve to have him here," he cried.

"I know," Pete agreed. "And he'll be here. We'll find him, I promise."

 

-

Neo-Gerard approached Mikey cautiously that night as he was getting into the tent. Mikey was already laying in bed with his eyes closed when he noticed a shadow sitting next to him for way longer than it needed to if it was just getting into bed. Mikey opened an eye, confirming it as Gerard, and sat up a little to make it not look like he was trying to get some goddamn sleep before lights out.

"What do you want?" He asked tiredly, glaring slightly at him, partly from frustration and partly from the annoying ass lantern in the tent, and really, he had to salute whoever engineered the lantern to be so damn bright.

"I just..." he lowered his voice. "You miss someone from back home, don't you? That's why you're so angsty." Mikey didn't know what angsty meant, he probably outdated it, but he could guess. It seemed like a pretty solid word, too. Gerard really hit the nail on the head in his observation, though.

"Um," Mikey said, "yeah. You're, uh, completely right, there." He tucked some of his hair behind his ear. Gerard nodded.

"A girl?"

"Um, no," Mikey answered, "just someone I love." Gerard nodded.

"That's okay. I'm not mad at you but I understand that you're mad at me," he said. It was way too hard to be mad at him when he was being so reasonable, why couldn't he just be offended and call Mikey a bad name? Plus, he reminded Mikey too much of his Gerard, and it was impossible to be mad at his own brother, who he knew he left. "I get that sometimes too. I didn't really like anybody back home, but I always keep thinking of what could be, if I just went back and tried to fix things," he signed. Mikey hummed in understanding, not making eye contact. "But I know I can't go back now. Maybe after ll this is over, the war and everything, things will be better."

"Things will definitely be better," Mikey promised.

"Wars always have a loser. What if we lose and the Nazi government takes over the entire planet? What if we never see our families again?" Mikey almost brushed Gerard's concerns off, because of course he knew the outcome of World War 2, but then realized: he was messing with time in a big way by being there and participating in the war. He probably caused a different, past version of his brother to appear two hundred years before he was born, and the repercussions of everything he had done in this time period could definitely change who won and lost the war.

The thought terrified him: before, he had the luxury of security in the safety of the country. Hitler would be overthrown, commit suicide, and fascism would never exist on such a great scale until 2033, when Robinson would rise to power in Scotland. But now there was no telling what could happen.

Mikey knew more than the average person in his time about history. It was to be expected when you were Travelling to three or four different time periods a day. There was no way he could walk out of any of those experiences without learning at least a little something about them. If he was back home and working his job as usual, he would be able to predict what the chances were with any of the outcomes with one of the probability calculators, but he didn't have access to that resource. Actually, he had no access to any Travelling resource. But he knew that, of course he knew that.

Spontaneously deciding to spice up his life was a bad idea. Travelling two hundred years in the past was a seriously bad idea. Putting his Communicator and Messenger on the same hand was a terrible, stupid, thoughtless idea. He wished he was anywhere, any time but there and then. He wished he had Gerard with him, the real Gerard, and Pete. God, did he need Pete. He needed him so badly, he felt like he was trapped inside a block of ice and Pete was an open flame and he needed to thaw out and he didn't care how badly he got burned, he just needed to be warm and safe.

It then occurred to him that everybody in this time was on the same boat as him. Nobody knew that in Mikey's timeline, Nazi Germany wouldn't last longer than fifteen years and that all of the pain and suffering would be over. For them, there was no foreseeable end to all of this oppression and war and poverty.

During all of his travels, Mikey had always found that he seemed to understand the people from the time periods he visited. He was able to communicate with them with little misunderstanding and hey all treated him with respect if it was reciprocated. He was aware of the hardships they were facing, and he admired their resilience when faced with terrible, immoral situations. But never once had be taken their place and lived like them for as long as he had been. Never once did he know exactly how terrifying it was to know that there was a chance that his country could be taken over by a fascist government. Never once had he known that at any time, one of his closest friends or family who were fighting a war could be pronounced dead. He never knew what it was like to live that way.

A tear rolled down his cheek. He knew that the world was a scary place; he knew that there was tragedy out there and that people lived in the most devastating conditions. But knowing one thing and experiencing it firsthand are two very different concepts. If you picked up a guitar and played it, you would know more about what a guitar was than somebody who read a paragraph about how it was played.

"We still have to fight, I guess," came Mikey's weak reply. Gerard nodded. 

"Are you okay?" he asked, noticing Mikey was crying. Mikey looked him in the face for the first time in the few minutes they had been talking. Concern was written all over it. It was comforting, knowing he cared.

"Yeah. I think training and everything is just getting to me," he said, wiping his eyes on his wrist. 

"Happens to us all," Gerard noted, turning off the lantern. "Goodnight, Mikes. Sleep well."

Mikey hummed in response, burying his face in his pillow. He had stopped crying, which was a good thing since he liked to imagine that he was above crying himself to sleep. He stayed still for a while, eventually letting himself fall asleep.

\- 

Getting all of your hair shaved off was definitely not something Mikey would thought he would ever do. While he didn't mind other people with buzzcuts, he just never thought it would look good on him. 

Despite that, he found himself standing in a line of men, waiting for his turn to get his hair shaved off. He was behind Gerard, who kept worrying about losing his hair.

"But it looks so good, Mikey, I would be hideous bald!" He complained, clutching onto his strands for dear life. Mikey rolled his eyes.

"Gerard, you signed up for this knowing full well what was going to happen," he countered. Gerard muttered something about being drafted, and Mikey furrowed his eyebrows.

"You were drafted? How did I not know this before?" He asked, feeling stupid for not knowing.

"It just never came up, I guess," Gerard shrugged. There was silence for a few minutes, Mikey wondering if he should apologize, then Gerard turned around again and said, "I bet you'd look even worse than me, holy shit."

Mikey raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, so stop complaining," he said as Gerard giggled. 

"You've got such a long head, I bet you'd look like an alien!" he laughed, covering his mouth to keep from getting told off.

Just as he was composing himself, he was tapped on the shoulder.

"Your turn, Way," the man who was in front of him called, rubbing his freshly shaved head incredulously. Gerard grimaced at Mikey before stepping forward and sitting down onto the chair. A towel was wrapped around his shoulders. He closed his eyes as he heard the snip of the scissors cutting his hair shorter so that it could be shaved without making much of a mess. He opened an eye to look at the floor and saw his black hair falling and resting among the other trainees' dead locks. He looked back up at Mikey, who gave him a thumbs up.

"Does it look bad yet?" he asked.

"I have no idea, it just looks like you're getting your hair cut," Mikey chuckled. "Besides, I thought we already established that you wouldn't look good." Gerard sighed as they finished with cutting his hair and got the razor ready.

"You know, I really wish we could just skip this part of being a soldier," Gerard noted, wincing as he felt the cold razor touch his scalp.

"It's mandatory. You knew what you were signing up for," the officer shaving him said, shaking the razor to get rid of the tufts of Gerard's hair still stuck to it.

"I know," Gerard signed. "Just... wishful thinking," he said, looking at Mikey wistfully.

-

"So you're, like, real trainees now," Frank noted that night at dinner. Mikey's hand flew up to touch his bald head and the stubble that still remained. Gerard was right, he did look like an alien. "How does it feel?"

"Feels like this is actually happening," Mikey said sadly. "Like we're actually going off to war in a couple of months." Frank nodded.

"Yeah, I remember when I had mine shaved. I had such a stupid crisis, like I regretted volunteering. But, you know. It's what the country needs," he sighed. 

"I don't know what you're all talking about. I just feel like... like a turtle. Without its shell, you know how weird they look? That's how I feel," Gerard grinned. 

"Mostly I just feel sore," Mikey said, ignoring Gerard but taking delight in his innocence. He knew that it wasn't genuine, but it still made him happy, witnessing it. Both Frank and Gerard let out a hum of agreement. 

"I can't remember a time where my limbs didn't feel like they were about to fall off," Frank said. 

"Seriously, there's no way it's that bad out on the battlefield," Gerard complained.

"I heard the worst part - physically, I mean - is traveling. The actual combat is fairly simple," Frank said.

"Well, obviously, or else they wouldn't be making us carry rocks in our bags," Mikey joined in, rubbing at his back. He was sure he was developing some sort of spinal injury from the cruel marching drills. 

 

"You get used to it," Frank told him. "At least a little bit. It still fucking hurts every time, just less."

"Do any of you think it's kind of sad, how we look forward to the most basic things?" Gerard asked. "Like, the other day I found myself daydreaming about a nice, hot shower where I get out and look at myself in the mirror and it's foggy but I rub my hand all over it so I can look at myself. That used to be the norm."

Mikey nodded. He totally understood what Gerard was saying. "We take things for granted all the time. It's human nature." Like how he took spending time with the brother and Pete for grated. What were they doing now? Maybe they were just watching entertainment, or cooking in their kitchens. Maybe Gerard was painting an animal, sitting in the living room and wondering where Mikey was. Maybe he was out shopping, feeling the texture of everything he was considering trying on because some textures just didn't work for him. 

He was snapped back into reality when he saw Frank lifting his glass of water out of his peripheral vision. "I'll drink to that," he said, and Neo-Gerard and Mikey lifted their glasses in a toast, something Mikey had never taken part in. He laughed even though nothing was funny and he actually kind of wanted to cry a little bit. The corner of Frank's mouth lifted up, and Mikey took that as what little encouragement he would get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy fathers day!!! im probably not gonna update for the next 2 weeks since im going to new hampshire next saturday and i doubt i'll get a new chapter done by then but im definitely gonna write a ton while im away so!!!


	13. Chapter 13

Mikey was so close. So close to him, in fact, that if he extended his hand just then, he could touch his face and trace the curl of his lips with his thumb, or lean in and drag his lips down his cheek to his mouth, then capture his lips in a sweet kiss.

His lips were soft, so soft, and the hand at the back of his neck cradled his face so well. Mikey was safe. Anything in his past was just that: forgotten and gone. Pete healed any wounds he had with his lips and his trailing hands protected him from anything outside of them.

Then he was laughing, his eyes glistening, and Mikey's heart soared. The look on his face was one of adoration: absolute and infinite. Mikey studied every centimetre of his face. He loved it all, even the parts that felt like he couldn't get to, that weren't close enough.

He tried to say something, something that sounded a lot like 'I love you', but his voice just didn't work. It didn't matter, Pete nodded and smiled again.

Mikey was aware he was dreaming, that this wasn't real, but that didn't stop him from drinking in the time. He would give anything to be with Pete, he wasn't going to disregard this chance that he had been given just because it wasn't a hundred percent real.

When he awoke, it wasn't in satisfaction, but rather in annoyance. He wasn't finished, goddamn it, he needed more time with him. Although, in the dream, the time didn't feel measurable. He was just with Pete, not limited by time or space. The opposite of reality.

He heard Gerard moving around and sat up to see what was going on. As it turned out, he was just tossing and turning in his bed, though he didn't look like he was trying all that hard to go to sleep, because his eyes were open. He looked solemn and thoughtful, the terrifying way Gerard did when he was thinking of something terrible.

He must have also heard Mikey moving around, because his eyes snapped out of focussing on whatever he was looking at and met Mikey's gaze.

"The world is so ugly," he said after a minute of eye contact. "It's nothing like they tell you when you're a kid. They tell you that... that you're going to grow up and get a job working somewhere you love and marry a woman you love and adopt a dog or something. But what about- what about the people who die before they even graduate high school? What about the people who can't get a job because they could never get an education? What about the men who don't want women?" Mikey swallowed. He hated when Gerard was like this. His mind got him into such bad places sometimes. Mikey's too, but never as far into the darkness as Gerard's could get. "Mikey, do you think there's really something wrong with homosexuality?" He asked. Mikey tensed up. What was he supposed to say there? Gay people were dying in concentration camps. He couldn't tell him that that was acceptable.

"I think men have the capacity to love other men as much as they love women. No, there's nothing wrong with it," he said finally Gerard nodded thoughtfully.

"What if-" Gerard choked out. "What if I think of men like that? What if I want someone, not just to sleep with, but to marry, as well? Is it possible to have that?" He whispered.

"Not marriage, no," Mikey said. But you can certainly live like a married couple with a man. You can come home to your boyfriend after a long day of work, kiss him on the lips and sit down for dinner with him. Men live with each other all the time as friends."

"Why does it have to be so unfair? Why do men who love each other have to be secretive about it? Why is my love lesser?" Gerard sobbed. Mikey leaned over to put his hand on Gerard's shoulder. Gerard flinched when he touched him, but put his hand over Mikey's when he moved it away.

Mikey let him cry in silence. He didn't think Gerard wanted answers to those questions. When Gerard wiped his tears with the back of his hand, Mikey let the hand on his shoulder fall. Gerard looked up at him, searching into his eyes for something. Mikey had no idea what.

It was a complete surprise when Gerard leaned in as if he were about to kiss Mikey. Mikey quickly pulled back. He couldn't kiss him, that was his brother! Well, maybe not biologically, but he looked, spoke and acted exactly like him. Mikey was pretty sure that was subject to the same rules as real-life incest.

Neo-Gerard pulled back, looking disappointed and embarassed. "I'm sorry, Gee, I just can't-" he forced out. He didn't want to make him any sadder than he had just been, but he couldn't just say he was his brother. Letting someone know you were from the future was a huge no-go, it made so many paradoxes and seriously fucked up the timeline of so many things.

"It's- it's okay," Gerard stammered. "I just wanted to know what it was like, to kiss another-"

"Don't worry about it," Mikey reassured him. "Just- not me, okay?" He took a deep breath. "Look, I know who you want. Frank, right? I'm pretty sure he's into you, too. You could make a move on him."

Giving dating advice to an alternate version of his brother was definitely not in his job contract.

"Okay," Gerard said. "Okay."

"Okay? Now go to sleep," Mikey replied, laying back down.

"Can't," came Gerard's weak voice.

"Pretend. Pretend you're living with the love of your fucking life and you're happier than you ever imagined you could be and there's no war and there's nothing holding you back from living the best life you could have," Mikey told him, rolling onto his side and closing his eyes.

He forced himself not to worry about Gerard's choked sobs. He couldn't lose any more sleep than he already had. He had training tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. He couldn't worry about this.

Still, it hurt to just let him suffer. He was his brother.

But none of that mattered. Right then, he was back in his apartment, sitting on his couch after an exciting but tiring day at work with his hot and hilarious boyfriend Pete Wentz, choosing what to watch and being so in love they didn't know how to function.

-  
The next morning at breakfast, Gerard nearly fell asleep in his food. Mikey had to keep poking him to make sure he stayed awake. He was aware of the fact that he could have helped him last night, but he needed to figure out how to help himself. There was no guarantee that he and Mikey would be put into the same squadron. And besides, Mikey needed sleep too, and he didn't really owe an alternate version of his brother anything.

Frank tried asking him if he was alright, to which Gerard replied with a look at Mikey. Mikey just shrugged, not knowing really what Gerard was asking, and figured a shrug was a safe bet. Gerard turned back to Frank.

"I'm just having a rough couple of nights," he explained, which wasn't necessarily a lie.

"It's really draining, isn't it?" Frank asked. "Like, emotionally, too. Missing sleep is like a deathwish in this place."

"I'm not choosing to fuck myself up," Gerard countered defensively.

"No, that's not what I mean, I just- I wouldn't want to be in your place, not in a million years." Gerard seemed to forgive him after that, nodding his head. Silence fell upon the table. That is, silent in the sense of not speaking, not that it was quiet at all in the cafeteria full of hundreds of men.

"So," Mikey said, "any news yet on when you'll be leaving us?" He asked Frank.

"All I know is that I'm here till at least January. That's when the early batch of soldiers who came here when I did are being shipped off to Europe," he said, taking a bite.

Gerard's eyebrows flew up his forehead. "January? But that's so early!" He whined.

"I know," Frank said. "It's hard to believe I could be out of here already in a couple of months." He met Gerard's gaze. "Hey, I'm going to miss you so damn much, you know. I'll think of you when I shoot my first real shot, I promise, I'll go 'oh hey, Michael was such a great shot, he would be correcting my stance right now. But Gerard, he couldn't shoot for shit, no siree.'"

"I don't know if that's how I want you to remember me," Gerard smiled.

"Alright, fine, I'll go 'wow, none of these women are half as smart and funny and beautiful as Gerard, I sure do wish he was here.'" Mikey watched Gerard turn seven different shades of red. "Michael was pretty neat, too" Frank added playfully.

"Oh, come on, is that all you can do for him?" Gerard said, trying to bring the attention off of his blushing face and onto Mikey.

"No, it's fine-" Mikey started to say.

"Michael was the best friend a man could wish for. He was so humble and such a great listener, and oh-so wise. For some fuckin' reason, he looked and acted a whole lot like that Gerard fellow, but I love him anyway," Frank interrupted, glaring at Mikey as if to tell him off for self-deprecating. But Mikey just didn't want them to think he was jealous of their closeness. Because he wasn't, anymore, not now that he had Pete to think about.

He was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe that dream had been a sign, and that Pete was on his way to him. A taste of what was to come, perhaps. The physical feeling of Pete's mouth on his own - that couldn't be dreamt, could it? Maybe Pete was communicating with him via that dream. Mikey realized with glee that that would mean that Pete returned his feelings towards him.

A future with Pete was possible, if that were true. They could cuddle up next to each other when the weather got cold, they could kiss in the rain, they could sneak off during parties to have sex in someone's bedroom and get yelled out for not being able to keep their hands off each other for a couple of hours.

Mikey wanted him so bad it hurt. He had probably had that feeling a million times prior, but it kept coming back. He couldn't imagine a circumstance where he would rather not Pete be there by his side - save for, say, his death. But instead of wallowing in that desperate state, he used it to benefit himself.

Pete was coming for him, he knew it.

-

Flasch as a company was, to say the least, not doing very well.

Following Michael James Way's disappearance, and the subsequent media slander, people no longer felt safe Travelling with them. Their demand lessened, yet their supply required more workers. It was getting harder and harder not to mess with the natural timeline too much - clients were reporting inaccuracies by the dozen. One of Pete's favourites of those that he had heard was one of a very infuriated George Washington appearing in a Women's March in 2017.

On the subject of Pete Wentz, he had been re-employed as a Traveller in order to be getting more labour out of him for what he was being paid. Gerard had finally started painting for profit again, and now that he was known as the brother of the boy lost in time, he was making a lot more money. That allowed him to buy higher quality supplies, but despite his newfound ability to sustain himself on his own job, he had trouble staying positive.

His brother was still missing, and Flasch was putting less and less effort into trying to find him. He tried to understand their thinking: they needed more people to help with the paradoxes, so actually getting Mikey back was less of a priority.

But wouldn't getting Mikey back fix all of that? Couldn't they just stay out of business while they looked for him?

The answer to those questions had been told to him several times prior, but that didn't mean they made sense. They had no way of knowing when they would find them. They could be looking for him for years, and staying closed for that long would quickly become impossible if they didn't want to go bankrupt.

Still, wasn't his brother more important than some money? Wasn't it better to save someone's life than to save money?

Gerard knew, he understood the reasoning behind those questions, but yet his brain couldn't take it. Why didn't they care about Mikey? Didn't they know how important and brilliant and uplifting he was?

He turned to his canvas, imagining how to visually represent how he was feeling. With a sigh, he took the paint colours he would need and picked up the paintbrush he was going to paint with.

This one, he decided, wasn't going to be sold, not to Pete, not to the public, despite the inkling he had that it would sell for hundreds more than the rest of his paintings were going for. This one was for himself. This one was for Mikey.

-

"So why do you wear those two watches? Are they broken?" Frank asked Mikey the next week. Gerard was staying late doing drills, since he was marching slowly that morning due to sleep deprivation.

He really made Mikey worry. He clearly wasn't doing well, but every time he told Gerard to go to sleep, he was told that Gerard just needed to think and that he would go to sleep in a second.

That "second" translated to roughly three hours.

Mikey wondered sometimes how he kept himself entertained during all of his thinking. Sure, Mikey liked to daydream, everybody did, but for three hours, without music or conversation to follow? Maybe people of the past had longer attention spans, since they weren't accustomed to being constantly bombarded with advertisements and stories and just stimulus in general. Maybe Gerard's thoughts were just that interesting and he just had to keep thinking.

"What watches?" Mikey replied to Frank. He didn't wear a watch, it was never necessary in his time and around the camp he barely ever needed to know what time it was. Besides, he could generally tell from the position if the sun.

"Those two, on your right arm. They're watches, no? They look like watches, but I can't imagine you can tell the time on them, are they broken or just that foreign to me?" Frank gestured to Mikey's wrist, and Mikey looked down at his Communicator and Messenger. Mikey would have imagined that they had more semblance to a bracelet than a watch, since they had no screens. Any images that needed to be shown would be projected so that the user could see them at any angle.

"Both, actually. The faces were knocked right off, so it's impossible to tell the time on them," Mikey explained, fabricating the lie as he went on.

"So why do you still wear them?"

Why did he still wear them? Oh, yes, that was right, he needed his location to be readable in case that was still possible while the Communicator was shut down, or if he ended up being able to repair either.

"Um, this one was given to me by my... uncle, back in England, and I bought this one myself before I left," Mikey said, pointing to each as he went on. "The one given to me by my uncle is, or rather was, set to English time, and the other, to our time. The faces got knocked off on the train ride here."

"Oh yeah? That thing was fucking packed," Frank commented. Mikey nodded, agreeing with him.

"Yeah, I made the mistake of standing and leaving a seat for someone else. The trains are much better in England." Mikey knew he was going out on a limb here, telling the truth like that, but he figured it would be fine, since there was nothing suspicious at all about what he said.

He was proved right when Frank laughed empathetically. "Oh, really? Poor you!" He said, patting Mikey on the back, who laughed along with him.

And maybe, just maybe, if this was the guy that an alternate version of his brother had to fall in love with, that wouldn't be so bad.

-

Mikey couldn't get Pete out of his head. This was proving to be rather problematic, since he really shouldn't be letting his mind wander when there was a loaded gun in his hands that he was about to fire.

It was so hard to keep himself focused when he was thinking that at any moment, Pete would come for him and take him back. At least when he stayed behind late for marching drills, he had something to think about other than the mindless repetition of 'left, right, left, right'.

"You're starting to look like me," Gerard commented once when they were both awake. Mikey didn't know for sure what time it was, but he estimated it was at least two in the morning. He turned to face him.

"Yeah," he whispered.

"Wanna talk about it?" Neo-Gerard asked him tiredly. The lack of sleep was getting to both of them, but now Mikey understood why Gerard just didn't sleep: he couldn't, not when he was thinking like this.

"Only if you talk, too," Mikey said. He wanted to know what was worrying Gerard like this.

"Not much to talk about," Gerard shrugged. "Just tragedy. It'll only make you worry."

"Bullshit. If it's as bad as it seems, it's gotta be better to talk about it than to keep it in like this."

Gerard took a deep breath. "I don't know, I just- I hate this war. It's terrible what they're doing in Poland and Germany and everywhere, and it's terrible that we're going to have to go out and fight and kill people, and I don't think I'm prepared to do that, to end someone's life just like that. Because I know they're fighting for their right to genocide, but surely not all of them agree with their country's behaviour, right? Most of them were just forced into this... this life of fucking tragedy, like the rest of us. And there's nothing at all, nothing that cam possibly make it better, and sure, maybe we win the war and Adolf Hitler is assassinated but then what? What happens to us?"

"I don't know," Mikey answered honestly. "Hopefully we just go home and live our lives like nothing happened."

"Look at me, Mikey. Does it look like I can just go back after this?" Mikey looked at him, at the dark circles around his eyes and his pale skin and his thin figure, and yes, he was right, something inside of him was different in a way that could never go back to the way it was.

But something else about what Neo-Gerard had said struck Mikey as odd, something he couldn't quite place.

"Look at me, Mikey" Yes, something in there-

"Look at me" No, that was normal, that was fine, which meant it had to be-

"Mikey"

It was a nickname he had been given as soon as he was born, in fact, it had been his parents' intention since he was a fetus that he would be legally named Michael but everybody would call him Mikey. And then when he was born, it was confirmed by both of his parents and little three-year-old Gerard, too - not this one, the one that lived in 2134 - that he looked more like a Mikey and not a Michael.

And he had been Mikey, not Mike, not Michael, ever since.

Of course, since he arrived in 1934, he had told everyone who asked that his name was Michael, because he didn't know how common the nickname was in this time, and it sounded more serious, and there were a billion other reasons that he didn't know he could identify, but they were there somewhere.

So why did Gerard call him that? How did he know that was his nickname?

"Mikey," he said his own name, looking at Gerard, who gave him a weird look. "You called me Mikey."

"Well, yeah, that's your name," Gerard shrugged.

"But how did you know that? I only ever told you I was called Michael."

"I don't know, it just... you seemed like a Michael," Gerard told him.

Nobody else had called him Mikey in months, and maybe Gerard just guessed, but Mikey was getting the feeling that something else was up. Something suggestive of a serious, huge, colossal timeline fuck-up.


	14. Chapter 14

"So what were you thinking about?" Gerard asked him, taking Mikey out of his pondering. Mikey blinked at him, not quite registering the words. "You told me you'd tell me if I told you."

"Um," Mikey said. "I just... miss somebody, that's all. Not a woman, like you thought. But someone I almost had a chance with but I didn't see what was right in front of me, I guess." Mikey knew he was being cheesy as hell right then, but he didn't care to explain it to Gerard in better words.

Gerard nodded. "And now you wish you could go back and change things, right?" 

"Yeah," Mikey said. "And the worst part is, I might never see him again, even after the war's over. I have no clue what he's doing right now. I just- I wish I could talk to him somehow."

"Why wouldn't you be able to see him again? If you know his name, you could look him up in the telephone directory - I swear, you can find anyone with those things," Gerard suggested. Mikey shook his head at him.

"No, it's more complicated than that... he's from where I'm from, and we don't..." he tried to come up with a believable enough lie to tell him"we haven't got any good telephone books yet. The concept is just now spreading to Europe."

"Ah," Gerard said. "Well, I'm sure you could find another way to reach him."

"Trust me, there's no way," Mikey emphasized. "The only possible way would be if he found me, and I've been hoping something like that will happen soon but I'm beginning to think it was all in my head," he sighed. 

"How do you know he won't?"

"I mean, the only reason I thought he was coming was because I had a dream about him, and I thought it was a sign or something, because it really felt like he was there, and I physically felt him, and you cant just make that up, right?" Mikey theorized, looking up at Gerard, who had his eyebrows furrowed.

"What do you mean?" Gerard asked, and really, he was feeling a little stupid, asking all of these questions, but he would give anything to take his mind off his own troubles. "You can totally dream physical tough, Mikes, I've done it countless times before." He noticed the look of shock on Mikey's face, and added, "Sorry to burst your bubble, or whatever."

"No, it's fine. At least now I know that it was just a dream," Mikey sighed, and he didn't know how to tell if he was relieved or disappointed at knowing this. Maybe both.

"Sorry," Gerard repeated, ignoring how Mikey said it was okay.

"Gerard, I said it was fine. I'm just... I don't know how I got to be so delusional to think that it meant something, I mean, what would that have even meant? That he was communicating with me via my dreams? There's no way that could have been a - a message, and I was just so stupid to think that, and-"

"Mikey, it's okay. You wanted something to be true so bad that you thought it was. Everyone does that, it's normal," Gerard interrupted him. 

"I know," Mikey signed. "I miss him," he said after a pause.

"I know you do," Gerard reassured him. "He probably misses you too, you know."

"Maybe. I just... I don't know, I don't want to get my hopes up in case he does find me, as unlikely as it is."

"Hey, I'm sure if he does find you, you both won't really be thinking about your attraction to one another as much as you'll be thinking about how you're back together.," Gerard pointed out.

"True, but most likely he won't find me and I'll stay here for the rest of my life and die a virgin because I could never get the balls to go out there and meet someone else," Mikey complained. "Hey, how are things going with you and Frank? Did you talk to him yet?"

Gerard blushed. "I- that's a bit of an abrupt subject change. Um, but not, I haven't. I'm kind of depressed right now. I wouldn't want to... I don't know, go crawling to him when I'm like this. I don't think it would be healthy, you know?"

"I guess. But I thought you were all hung up about how you couldn't have him," Mikey pointed out. Gerard gave him a confused face.

"'Hung up'?" He inquired. Mikey almost slapped himself in the face. That was modern slang and he knew that, why did he have to use it while talking to Gerard?

"Sorry, I meant sad. As in, you were all sad because you couldn't have him, you know?" Gerard nodded.

"No, that's not all of it. I mean, I know I could, but just... now's not a good time for that. And he's going away soon anyways. It's not like it would work."

"You could send letters to each other, you know. If you've got the money for it," Mikey suggested. He had thought about sending letters to Lindsey but she would probably write back to all of them, and the expenses for sending them were so unreasonably expensive, and he didn't want to run down their budget.

That brought him back to Lindsey and their family. They should have been receiving Mikey's salaries by then. He hoped it was helping them, at least enough to keep Lindsey and her dad out of trouble. It wasn't as much as it would be if he weren't there illegally, but it was something, right?

"No, I don't think I'd have enough to keep it a regular thing," Gerard said sadly. "But I'll get his information so we can keep up after this is over. You, too." Mikey nodded.

"Yes, definitely," he agreed. "If I never see you two after this, I'll probably be living the worst life imaginable," he laughed.

"Yeah. But hopefully we'll be fighting together, right? I mean, you're a little bit ahead and I'm a little bit behind, plus the name thing. We're probably going to be put in the same combat group anyways," Gerard pointed out. Mikey didn't realize this before, but now it made sense to him. Of course they would be put together, why didn't he figure this out?

In any case, he was grateful that he would probably get to keep Gerard while they were out there, fighting. On the other hand, Gerard would probably be even more miserable while they were there. Training was one thing, but actually fighting would be so traumatic for him. At least Mikey would be there with him, and he would know exactly how he was doing at any given moment.

"Yeah, you're right," Mikey said. "Even if we won't, I'll still think of you, you know."

"Mikey, I don't need you to worry about me."

"You kind of do, tough. No offense, but you need to talk to people about this. You can't let it tear you up inside. That's a bad idea, a really bad idea, trust me, I know. I'm the king of bad ideas," Mikey told him. 

"Yeah, I guess," Gerard agreed reluctantly. "I worry about you, too."

Mikey almost told him that he didn't need to, that his own problems were way more important, but he realized that would make him a huge hypocrite. Instead, he just said, "Thanks."

Gerard hummed, acknowledging him. They stayed in silence for a while, and Mikey almost fell asleep again, but then an image came into his head and he couldn't get it out. Or, now that he thought of it, maybe it was just a dream and he actually fell asleep. In any case, it terrified him. 

He thought of Pete, kneeling by his grave in a couple of years' time, regretful that he couldn't save Mikey. Mikey almost wrote it off as impossible because if Pete came around and he was dead, he could just travel back in tome to when he was alive. The thing about it was, there was no knowing whether or not it would be possible to go to the time where Mikey was alive and existing in the world, because there was clearly some weird paradox stuff going on that Mikey didn't know the specifics of.

So it was entirely possible that Pete would find hi and that he would be dead. He needed Pete to know, though. He needed him to know how he felt, and also, the company would need to know what Mikey did while he was in the past so they could untangle the timeline and fix everything he fucked up and make sure it never happened again.

So what could he do? His brain searched for a solution. This reminded him of trying to figure out how to fix his Communicator. It was only three months ago, but it felt like years. 

"What if I die?" He blurted out. Once it was out there, he wondered if he would prefer that Gerard was asleep and didn't hear that or if he did. But he didn't have a choice in the matter, and Gerard was turning around to face him already.

"What do you mean?" Gerard asked back.

"I mean, what if he finds me and I'm dead? What happens then?"

"He probably will think he's found the wrong place and look for you elsewhere," Gerard said. "Sorry, that's probably not what you wanted to hear."

"No, it's fine, I just- there are some things he needs to know," Mikey explained to him.

"Write them down," Gerard suggested tiredly. Mikey felt bad for making him talk to him, but he really needed to know what to do in this situation.

"But what if someone else reads them, or what if they get lost?" Mikey pressed.

"I'll keep them for you. Anything you write, give it to me, and I'll give it to this guy if he comes around," Gerard offered. Mikey appreciated that he was taking him seriously even though he felt like he was making a fool of himself.

"How will you know it's him?" Mikey added.

"Mikey, I'm sure there can't be that many men looking for a Michael Way around here. Or in Europe, for that matter. I'll know it's him."

Mikey seemed satisfied with Gerard's answers. But could he actually write down everything he had been doing and thinking since he arrived? A lot had happened in the last three months, he felt like he had experienced more in that short time than he had in the last three years of his life. Everything he knew had been flipped on its head countless times. Did he really have the time to write all of that down?

But really, all of that wondering was useless, because he knew the answer. Even if it killed him, he had to write everything down. He would probably lose even more sleep and he'd probably have to work super hard to keep up with his training and during drills, but he had to get this done. Because if he died there and there was no record of his life during the time he was alive, he would never forgive himself. This needed to be documented. It needed to go down in history as one of the worst things to happen involving time travel. 

If and when Mikey got back, he wouldn't know if he would want to keep his job. It was something he loved doing and he never really could imagine himself doing something else, but after all of this was over, could he do it all over again? Well, obviously, not all of it, but he wasn't sure if he wanted this to be his last time Travelling.

Although, that was presuming he kept his job and wasn't fired immediately. He was probably costing the company a whole lot of money by then. It was possible that they would never want to see his face again, and really, Mikey couldn't blame them. He was probably a huge interference in their plans as it was. 

In any case, he could think about that once he was there. He didn't need to be making decisions like that at the moment. He could be starting to write his letters - or, maybe he should plan what to write before he wrote it? 

"Where would I get the paper, though?" Mikey asked Gerard out of the blue.

Gerard looked at him again. His eyes had been drifting off a little. "They have paper and pens for writing in the main building," he answered, "usually people use them for writing letters, but the paper is free as long as you don't send it anywhere."

"Oh," Mikey said. "And they're not open now, are they?"

"For God's sake, Michael, just go to sleep," Gerard laughed tiredly. 

"Okay," Mikey agreed, and turned away from him, to prevent himself from trying to talk again. He really needed to sleep. They had been awake for, what, an hour now? And it was three, maybe four in the morning. Mikey had gotten about three hours of sleep so far. 

And it wasn't like he was just going to wake up and go to work the next day - although, it was past midnight, so the same day would probably be more accurate. He had drills and training to keep up with, and God, he needed to keep up so he would be placed with Gerard when they were shipped off to the real war out there.

So he didn't get paper, he didn't think about what he'd write when he did, he just shut his eyes and tried to sleep.

-

Mikey woke up the next morning exhausted but determined. He had a plan now, something new to focus on. It was like when he learned to play chess - though, he hadn't played since he arrived. It didn't matter, this was more important. 

He got through his drills, ignoring the pain in his muscles and ate all of his lunch, even the horrendous stew that tasted like dog food. He needed the nourishment. 

By the end of training, he had an extra hour to do whatever he wanted, which led him to the main building to pick up some paper and a pen. It was just laying on a table near the front desk (which was mysteriously unattended, but Mikey just brushed it off. That wasn't what he was there for.), so he took a few thin sheets and a pen and brought them back to his tent. 

Once he was back, Gerard was nowhere to be found. Mikey found a flat surface (a folder that Gerard had lying around) and contemplated what to write about. 

He had to include staying with Lindsey, for sure, and he should probably mention how he couldn't get a job because of his lack of identification in order to explain why he joined the Army. But before all of that, he had to explain why he went back two hundred years.

 _Dear Pete_ , he started. But what if Pete himself wasn't the one who found the letters? He then added, _(or whoever finds this)_ :

_Let me preface this by saying how sorry I am. There is really no excuse for what I've done, I have likely costed the company millions of credits and have worried my brother and Pete immensely._

__

__

_Just as he finished writing the last letter of 'immensely', Gerard burst into the tent, a huge grin plastered on his face._

"You'll never believe who I just kissed."


	15. Chapter 15

"Does his name rhyme with tank, by any chance?" Mikey asked with one eyebrow raised. Gerard grinned gleefully.

"Yes!"

"Well, that wasn't exactly a very hard guess, then..." Mikey commented. Gerard ignored him, as he was jumping around the room. When he came close to Mikey, Mikey laid a hand on his ankle, hoping to get his attention but avoid making him trip. Gerard stopped in his place, arms in the air, and looked down at Mikey, who was still sitting on the floor.

Gerard got the message Mikey was sending him and sat down facing him. "I thought you were going to wait before you told him how you felt," Mikey said.

"I was. But this... this just happened. It was a kiss, and nothing else, no discussion of emotions beforehand. Which is fine and lovely. I don't have to worry about him caring about me this way," Gerard explained.

Mikey raised his eyebrows and lowered them again. "Whatever you say. I still think you gotta work on the guilt thing. You're not a burden, Gerard."

"Yeah, whatever. I'm just happy, for now. I mean, at least he's not going to report me to the officers for being a homosexual." Shit. Mikey had totally forgotten that was a thing. Being gay was not only frowned upon there, it was a crime. That meant that he might have to be careful when he wrote the letter - but no, if Gerard kept it like he said he would, there should be no problem. And besides, he'd likely be dead if the letter was read by anyone other than himself.

"Yeah, that's good," Mikey agreed. "Just- be careful, okay? Don't go around making out with him in broad daylight and everything. And please, not in front of me."

Gerard stuck his tongue out at him. "Fine." He looked over to where Mikey's writing supplies were. "You're writing the letter?"

Mikey followed his gaze and looked behind himself, as if he forgot the materials were there. "Yeah, I got, like, the first paragraph done. Not much, but it's a start." Gerard nodded.

" Do you know how long it's going to be?" He asked.

"No idea," Mikey answered honestly. "A couple of pages, at least. My handwriting is kind of big and quite honestly, illegible. I haven't written with an actual pen in a while." That was an understatement. It had been years since Mikey had so much as seen a pen or pencil or, god forbid, actual paper. Most of it was replaced by typing, and then, later, mindwriting. Still, they taught handwriting in elementary schools, despite all of the protests from the children that it wasn't necessary (Mikey still didn't think it was for most people), because "you won't have a keyboard with you every day".

Mikey would have then debated that literally everyone was equipped with a Messenger and typing was much more efficient, but because teachers had authority over him, the argument ended there, usually with the assertion that "I'm the teacher, I decide what is taught."

That didn't mean that Mikey himself never wrote. In fact, in this particular situation, he was very glad to be able to write. However, most people never encountered this situation in their lifetimes. Mikey knew for a fact that Pete was completely unable to write with a pencil because he had forgotten how. When they were in a time period that required the to write something, Pete usually just said that he was illiterate, and usually that wasn't questioned because of his skin tone. Even in more recent time periods, like 1990, people were still very prejudiced and didn't bat an eye at Pete's weakness because African-Americans were more likely to be extremely poor and uneducated.

Later, when they returned, Pete and Mikey would laugh at the stupidity of the situation. They thought that Pete was so old-fashioned because he was unable to write or even read, when in fact he was literally from the future. 

"Here, let me see if I can read it-" Gerard offered, reaching for the paper Mikey had started writing the letter on. Mikey flinched and Gerard stopped.

"No, I'd- I'd rather you not," Mikey admitted. Gerard backed off.

"Oh," he said, "sorry. I should have asked."

"No, it's fine, just... yeah," Mikey said awkwardly, scratching the back of his head and avoiding eye contact. He didn't know why he was acting so awkward, it was really no big deal. Gerard knew that. Maybe he was really just trying to get Gerard leave him to write his letter. Now that he had started, everything he wanted to write came flowing into his mind. He needed to get his ideas onto paper. 

"So I'll leave you to it, then," Gerard said, gesturing to the writing materials behind Mikey. Mikey grinned at him, close-mouthed and odd. "I'm just going to try and sleep a bit, I won't be a bother."

Mikey hadn't predicted having to write while Gerard was in the tent, he usually spent his extra time making up for how badly his drills went, but he supposed he didn't mind if he wasn't going to be a nuisance. "Sweet dreams," Mikey said cooly. Gerard returned his grin fron earlier and settled into bed while Mikey got his pen and paper and Gerard's book again. 

He picked up from where he left off, mentioning how he was sorry because of how much he was costing the company and how much he was worrying Gerard, real Gerard and Pete. 

_I think it would be wise to document what has happened to me and because of me since I have arrived. Today is the-_

He scratched his head. What was the date? 

"Gerard, what's the date?" He asked. He heard Gerard shift a bit in his blankets.

"Uh, November something? It's a Saturday, I know that... And the third was Thursday, so the fifth?" He mumbled from his spot on the floor. Mikey nodded.

"It's a bit cold for November, no?" He asked. It was getting to be really cold, almost as cold as Mikey got in the middle of winter back home.

"I don't know, Mikey, just let me sleep," he groaned. Mikey laughed.

_Today is the fifth of November 1934 and I've been living here for nearly five months now. A lot has happened in those five months._

_First, I came into this time in the middle of a road, somewhere in New Jersey. A woman, Lindsey Ballato, believed I was attempting to commit suicide and took me to her house. I also got her to believe that I had immigrated illegally from Britain because of the war. This woman was the daughter of the town's mayor, and they would take in 'refugees' who otherwise had no other home. I could not get a job because of my illegitimacy, so I learned how to play chess to keep myself entertained._

_During this time at her house, I became very close to Lindsey. Once, one of my housemates asked me if I was attracted to her. I wasn't. She was just my friend._

_I mention this only because that caused me to realize something else: I am attracted to Pete Wentz. it's with this in mind that I recognized that I should write this letter. I would hate to have died without him knowing how I feel for him. In any case, I do hope that this knowledge gives him solace rather than sorrow._

_At a certain point, where the Ballatos were struggling to keep enough money together to maintain the makeshift refugee centre, I was asked to leave since I was the only one without a job. After some consideration, I accepted this request. I joined the Army in order to keep myself fed and under a relative amount of safety while earning some money for the family. I have not been in contact with them since I left, but I do hope that they are doing well with the money._

Mikey was thinking of what to write next when the bell in the tent field rang. That was the designation of dinner - there were a couple of huge bells placed around the camp that would be rung every time there was somewhere else for the trainees to be. Mikey blew out the candle he had lit in case it got too dark to see what he was writing and nudged Gerard to wake him up. Gerard stirred, mumbling incoherently for a few seconds before opening his eyes.

"Dinner," was all Mikey said before getting up and leaving the tent. Gerard sat up, rubbing his eyes. He sat for a few seconds, still waking up, before realizing that he really should be getting to the dining hall and catching up to Mikey on his way there.

-

During supper, Gerard continued to flirt with Frank like usual, though instead of rolling his eyes in discomfort Mikey grinned at him slightly every time. He was happy for him. Hopefully this would mean less late-night pondering, though now that Mikey had the letter to be writing and could relax a little more on the Pete front, hopefully he wouldn't be awake to see Gerard sitting up and not sleeping.

Though, maybe - no, he couldn't. The letter was to be written only during waking hours. He couldn't afford to lose any more sleep. He knew this, he had to sleep as much as he could or he would get behind. But it did tempt him. He just wanted to get the letter done as soon as possible. Though, really, it wouldn't all be done until the day he died. He needed to keep it updated even when he finished summarizing what had happened thus far. But what would he do with his time when he finished making it up to date? Maybe he could finally join one of those chess tournaments. Yeah, that could be fun - and it would keep his brain stimulated, too. 

He witnessed as Frank shook his fork full of beans at Gerard, accidentally flicking one onto his face. Frank leaned in to wipe it off Gerard's giggling face, kissing him on the cheek after getting it off. Mikey's eyes widened. 

"Look, I don't mind if you guys do that stuff, but someone else who could see might not. You guys could get into some serious trouble," Mikey said in between sips of water. 

Frank raised an eyebrow. "I was just brushing a bean off his face, no big deal," he responded.

"Sure," Mikey said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "I'm serious, though. You guys have to be careful. I just gave this lecture to Gerard, don't make me go through it again." He felt a little out of place, after all, shouldn't it be the big brother lecturing the little brother about safety and whatnot? But then again, they weren't brothers, at least not he and _this_ Gerard. 

"Wait. You lectured Gerard? Why?" Frank questioned, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Well... um," Mikey started, just then realizing Frank didn't know that he knew he and Gerard kissed. "He was really excited about something when he came into the tent just now."

Frank turned to Gerard. "You told him?" He didn't seem angry, just concerned and confused, maybe. Gerard nodded slowly. "How'd you know he wouldn't... you know, report us?" he murmured to Gerard, though Mikey could easily overhear. After all, he was right across the table from him. 

"Mikey and I spend a lot of time talking at night," Gerard explained, speaking slowly and brushing his hair behind his ear. "I... being attracted to you... it was keeping me up at night, amongst other things, and Mikey couldn't sleep either, so we talked about it. He told me it was fine, that this, us, was fine." He focused mainly on Frank, since that was who he was talking to, but he would occasionally glance at Mikey, who would nod slightly to encourage him.

"Oh," Frank said, "I didn't know it was a big deal to you, sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"No, it's fine, really," Gerard interrupted. "I'm happy, seriously."

"But that's not- Gerard, I'm sorry, but we're training to go to war. I'm going to be fighting out there, every day, in a couple of months. Anything more than what's going on between us right now- it would never work. I might not still be alive by the time you go to Europe, I mean, it just wouldn't work out," Frank explained. "Nothing personal."

"I know. I've thought about that, too," Gerard sighed, "There's nothing keeping us from just having fun while you're still here, though, right? I want to make the most of the time we still have left."

Frank glanced at Mikey, clearly feeling weird about having this conversation in front of him but too humble to say a word. Mikey pretended to not be listening and observed the walls of the dining hall very intensely. "I just don't want to get attached," he admitted. "I'm scared that you'll be so heartbroken when I leave that-"

"Don't worry, Frank. I've known you're going to be leaving since I came here. No one in this building is expected to be here for longer than, say, two years. That's just how it is. And I understand that. And if we both survive, we can meet up again, after our services are over, and we can live together, Frank. As a couple. Mikey said it was possible, he knows," Gerard said, taking Frank's hand in his. 

Mikey snapped back into the conversation at the mention of his name. Frank was looking at him, but Mikey couldn't determine what he was thinking from the expression on his face. Frank looked back at Gerard. "Yeah, alright," he said finally. "I do really like you, you know."

Gerard giggled. "I thought you didn't, but Mikey said you definitely did from the way you acted around me."

"Well, he was right," Frank laughed, too. He slung his arm around Mikey and patted his back. "You'e a smart bastard, you know?"

Mikey finally joined in on the laughter. He only hoped that when - no, if - Pete found out that he'd have similar luck with telling him. That is, if he was the one to tell him in person rather than via a letter he wrote before he died.


	16. Chapter 16

During the next months, Gerard and Frank canoodled in private, giggling and just enjoying love. Mikey got over his jealousy eventually. Writing the letter helped, he thought, especially since he confessed his feelings for Pete on that paper. Now, no matter what, Pete would know. 

He was happy for them, really, but that didn't make it any more bearable when Frank kicked him out of the tent for half an hour so he and Gerard could have some alone time. He knew they deserved it, since they were constantly surrounded by other men in this place, but it annoyed him to an extent. 

He'd never forget when he returned to the tent one afternoon after their thirty minutes were up and finding Gerard asleep on Frank's lap, both of them naked. Luckily they had a blanket covering them, it was freezing cold even in the tent, where they had a small fire to heat things up, but when Frank awoke with a jolt and started reaching for his clothes, having spotted Mikey, he quickly understood what had just gone on.

He wasn't mad, they were both adults and could do what they wanted, but it hit him then that he would likely never get to have sex with someone other than himself, and even then, privacy was limited, very limited. That was the first time he had felt jealousy since they got together. It was yet another thing Mikey would never get to experience that Gerard got to indulge in all the time. 

The glowing, giddy expression on Gerard's face for the rest of the day kind of made up for that, though. Seeing someone Mikey cared about so much being so happy even though they were in a terrible, tragic situation made him feel just a little bit of the bittersweet happiness that Gerard embodied. Still, he wished he could feel that same way eventually. But the chances of that happening were so low, considering he was 'saving himself' for someone who would probably never come save him. But he couldn't ever imagine betraying Pete like that, not after all the time it took for him to realize how badly he wanted him. He felt dedicated to him. 

Mikey finished writing the letter within a week of starting it. He read it over every night that he could, though, because he wanted it to be perfect and always wondered if he should add something else. The paper was getting worn out from that, and he worried that he would have to write up another cope eventually. The letter had the addition of a few new paragraphs, reading:

_A very peculiar thing happened once I arrived at the training camp, Camp Wood. I was sent off to my bunk where I would sleep temporarily before I was assigned a tent, when a man who looked very much like my brother, Gerard, was sitting on the upper bunk. His name is also Gerard Way. I have been getting to know him during my time here, and I believe that the rift in time caused by me being here has led this to happen._

_He is very much like my brother in demeanor and idiosyncrasy, however, I do not believe we are biologically related. He has no memory of me from his childhood and he is an only child. He never talks much about his parents or family, either, so perhaps he only remembers the basics because he doesn't have a real past. He has no idea that I am his brother, nor that I am from the future._

_He has a boyfriend in this camp, Frank Iero. I feel as though I recognize him but that could just be because I expect to. He and Gerard were good friends before I arrived at the camp. Now, the three of us are all very great friends. We have promised each other to try and get together once our service and/or the war is over. Perhaps if this Gerard and Frank work together so nicely, my brother should be on the lookout for handsome strangers by the name of Frank Iero. The two of them make me wish it were possible to be with Pete, whom I miss so much it hurts._

_Frank will be leaving for war in a month. He and Gerard will not be communicating during their services, so their relationship does have a due date. I do not envy them in that respect. I think I will miss Frank when he leaves. He is a good friend and he makes Gerard very happy._

_As for myself and Gerard, we have been told that we are expected to be shipped off to Europe within six months. We are trying to get it so that we will be in the same platoon so we will see each other every day. I would be incredibly disappointed if we were to be separated. This Gerard (or Neo-Gerard, as I refer to him sometimes) has become almost as close to me as my actual brother._

_That is not to say that I do not miss my brother; I would give anything to be with him right now. But Neo-Gerard has proven to be an acceptable substitute._

_I have now taken up chess again. Most pf the men here are better players than me, but some of them have offered to teach me some of their tricks, which has allowed me to become a better player. I recently won a box of cookies in a match for the tournament, all of which I have already eaten. Still, it feels good to know that I have developed a skill here that has become good enough to be profitable. It gives me hope that I can do this, that I can go to war and come out alive._

_I know that a good portion of American soldiers did not survive this war, but is it wrong for me to have faith that I will not be one of them? Should I be hoping for the worst or what I think will happen, deep down? Because some people did survive this war. Could I be one of them or is it bad luck to think that I have a chance?_

_I have realized by now that there's no way to know what the true outcome of this war is, since I have messed up the timeline of events. Maybe Adolf Hitler will reign supreme. Maybe all of history will be rewritten because of a stupid decision I made on the fly, two hundred years ago. I am just as clueless and lost as everybody else in this camp. I can only hope for the best._

Mikey wished he could write more, he wished he could document every little thing that happened onto those sheets of paper so that whoever found it could fix the timeline and bring it back to where it was, exactly. But that obviously wasn't possible. Mikey was doing the best he possibly could by writing the important things down.

That meant that there was a chance - a small one, but a chance nonetheless - that he had confused the timeline beyond repair, and though the thought terrified him to no end, part of him wanted it to be like that. If he was going to go through hell, the world should know.If everything just went back to being the same as before he left, it would be like his suffering never happened. But it did, and Mikey would probably spend the rest of his life regretting that night and that decision. It would only be fair if the rest of the world had to suffer like he did. 

Mikey wasn't a sadist or anything, but it was likely that if he returned to his own time, nobody would ever understand everything he had to go through if everything was fine for them. Because being in an Army training camp in 1934 wasn't something that they'd ever experience. 

Maybe when he got back and told his story, people would be more considerate towards the people in the times they visited. That would make Mikey even happier than them suffering as he did. 

As the months went on and the day Mikey and Gerard would go off to war, Mikey's mental health got worse. He knew there was no way to prepare himself for the things he would have to go through, which made his fears even worse. At least with the 'people from his time might find him dead' thing, he could write the letter and help them figure things out. But there was nothing he could do for this except do his drills, and even then, he couldn't be too good at them because then his plans to leave the training camp with Gerard would be ruined, and that would be even worse for his mental health.

So instead he spent time with Gerard and Frank (he tried to pay special attention to Frank, since he was leaving so soon), which definitely helped. He still wished there was something he could do, actively, that would visibly help him, but hanging out with them was still helpful. He still played the chess tournaments, usually scoring mid-high, which made him kind of known around the camp. Sometimes the players he beat would offer him a friendly handshake in the cafeteria or right before drills. 

Eventually, though, the day came where Frank had to leave. Well, really, he was leaving early the next day, but it was his last full day at the camp. He didn't have to go to any drills at all, so he stood by during Mikey and Gerard's, often cheering them on and getting flipped off in return. Gerard had been acting depressed all day, which was to be expected. Frank, too, was sad, but not nearly as much as Gerard. Likely, he had other things on his mind, which was understandable. 

Mikey tried not to show his feelings, in pity of Gerard, which he was good at. He made sure that Frank knew he cared about him and would miss him, though, and told Gerard that he would always be there for him. Except not really in the way Frank was there for him, of course. During the drills, at least, Mikey's expression was the same old look of pain and discomfort. 

Gerard, however, kept glancing over to where Frank was sitting with this look of sorrow that made Mikey's throat tighten with sadness. He knew Gerard would be like this, it was predictable, but was Frank expecting it to be like this? He felt the need to go ask him that, but he couldn't, not when he was running all over the field with a weapon in his hand. 

When drills were over, he and Gerard went to Frank. Gerard hugged him tightly out of no where. Frank laughed sadly, bringing his arms up to return the action. Gerard buried his head into Frank's shoulder. They stayed there for a while, then Gerard looked up and made eye contact with Mikey. Mikey felt incredibly awkward for a second, feeling like he was intruding, but then Gerard lifted his arms from Frank's back and gestured for Mikey to join them. The corner of Mikey's mouth turned up a bit and he stepped forward to hug the both of them, fitting himself to the side. Frank and Gerard's arms moved to include him, and they stood there in a group hug before an officer yelled at them to get out.

They broke apart, Frank smiling though Mikey could see tears welling up in his eyes. Gerard let out a sob, tears not flowing down his cheeks yet, but Mikey could tell they were about to.

"Why don't we go back to our tent?" He proposed, knowing that neither of them were probably very keen on crying in front of the officers. Gerard had done it once, when he was having a particularly hard day (his rib was later found to be broken, but they didn't know that at the time). During his firing drill, he just broke down. The loud gunshots were stressing him out big time, but the officer didn't care, he yelled at him to 'man up' anyways.

Frank and Gerard seemed to agree with that, and Mikey wrapped his arms around their backs and led the way. Frank wiped his eyes.

"I don't know how I'm gonna do it without you two," Frank admitted. "I don't really know anyone in my platoon. I mean, sure, there are people I'm friendly with, but they don't- they don't know me like you guys do."

"Oh, come on, I'm sure there are some really interesting and friendly people in your platoon, you just have to meet them," Mikey said. "You probably won't have much of a choice but to trust them, anyways."

Frank laughed a slobbery laugh at that, turning his head to Gerard. "No one like Gerard, though." Gerard's head shot back from where he was looking (at the ground to his right, it seemed) to face Frank.

"No, no one like Gerard," Mikey laughed. "But Gerard's special. If there were more people like him, the world would be in flames." As Mikey said it, he realized that it was a lie. Of course there were more people like Gerard, one of them was his own brother back in 2134. But those two would never meet - hopefully. If they did, there would probably be some kind of total collapse of the timeline. That sort of thing was what could bring the downfall of humanity, if not the cosmos itself. Which was why Mikey had this job - the job which he probably, now, had lost.

"Aw, thanks, Mikey," said Gerard, rolling his eyes. 

"Promise me we'll find each other after the war?" Frank proposed. "All three of us, no matter what."

"No matter what," Mikey agreed. "You have my word."

"Mine, too," Gerard added.

"Great," said Frank. "This- this is just an interval. In between us seeing each other, right? So I can have something to look forward to while I'm away."

"Yeah," Gerard agreed. "This is just an interruption. Things will be back to normal once we're back."

Mikey wasn't really believing any of this, and he wasn't sure the others were, either, but if they didn't, he didn't want to stop them from pretending. He just nodded. "Yeah. We'll see you on the other side of this, Frank. When the world is different and Hitler is dead." He contributed. 

Frank smiled at him, wiping tears from his face. "I think maybe this will all be alright. Maybe not now, or anywhere within the war, but eventually, you know? We'll get through it."

Gerard nodded, bowing his head. Mikey could tell he was crying and just didn't want to show it, which was ridiculous, since they all had cried in front of each other (except Mikey, who rarely ever cried). Eventually, though, he looked up and kissed Frank on the lips, soft and short.

Mikey just smiled at them. Maybe Frank did really believe it was going to be okay. Mikey, personally, didn't really buy it. He knew the same amount of information as him, though the fact that he knew what the future could be like, even though it was likely not to happen that way anymore, made it feel like he had less certainty.

It was possible, too, that he had messed with the timeline enough that in the future, the invention of time travel wouldn't be invented in time for Pete to save him. Or maybe Pete would have never been born. Or maybe he had, but he never pursued a career in Travelling. Except even if Pete wasn't the exact person who saved him, someone else could always do it. In fact, it was highly possible that someone else would be the one to find him, eventually.

But then things might be different in a different way - maybe Gerard was a successful artist and didn't need to rely on stupid things like his little brother anymore, or maybe Mikey had a whole load of medical bills from his mother he needed to pay for. But still, anything would be better than this harsh life, and anyways, they would still be able to fix Mikey's screwups - hopefully. 

In any case, Mikey was still sitting there, in his tent in an Army training camp, with an alternate version of his brother and his boyfriend, sobbing because of said boyfriend's departure. He patted Gerard on the back and reassured him that everything was going to be alright and that he would see Frank as soon as the war was over.

They lay there until the sun went down and an officer moved through the field, calling for any soldiers (because that's what Frank was now - a soldier, a real soldier who would fight for the lives of the innocent and all of that) in Frank's platoon to report to the main hall.

Frank sat up. "I wish I didn't have to go."

"You have to, though," Mikey pointed out the obvious.

"I know," Frank replied. "But just know that you haven't seen the last of me. Okay? I love you," he said sincerely. Mikey nodded, a quick, sharp, down motion followed by a slow up motion. 

He left the tent silently, tears in his eyes. Mikey purposefully looked away.

At the sound of the fabric of the tent rustling, a sleeping Gerard stirred. Mikey regretted not checking to see if he wanted to say goodbye, too. He didn't know he had fallen asleep. 

"You missed Frank's departure," Mikey told him. His eyes flew open.

"Oh," said Gerard, sitting up and blinking the sleep away from his eyes. He looked around the tent, as if looking for a trace of Frank to say goodbye to. "He's gone?"

"Yeah. I didn't realize you were sleeping, or I would have woken you up," Mikey confessed.

"Oh," Gerard said again. "Not your fault." he laid back down groggily, cuddling up to Mikey, who accommodated him. 

Gerard seemed to fall back sleep instantly, which Mikey didn't understand. Maybe he was exhausted from his short nap enough to not even have the capacity for laying awake in sorrow.

Mikey did, though. He stared at the wall of the tent for longer than he thought was possible without his skull exploding, his mind blank and racing at the same time. 

At some point in the night, long after he blew out the lantern for lights out, he finally drifted off to sleep, knowing that Frank wouldn't be there when he woke up in the morning.


	17. Chapter 17

If Mikey ever thought Gerard was going to be chill after Frank left, he was definitely proven wrong when all Gerard wanted to do was mope around and lie in bed with his hands over his face. It was a bit annoying to be honest, and didn't help Mikey get over it himself at all. 

At least after a week, Gerard stopped crying about it and would talk to Mikey if he pushed him enough. Though usually it was something along the lines of 'go away' or 'just go write your stupid letter, why don't you?', which Mikey found hurtful but didn't take too much offence to, since he knew Gerard was going through a tough time.

So was Mikey, though. Frank was his friend, too, and he missed him. If Frank were there, he would know exactly how to calm Gerard down. Although if Frank were there, Gerard wouldn't need calming down at all. 

Mikey wondered how Frank was doing with this, whether he was in as much pain as Gerard or if he was forcing himself to get through it like Mikey. Hopefully he was doing fine, or as fine as he could be. Gerard wouldn't want him to be all sad and depressed, and neither would Mikey.

Mikey's main coping strategy was to occupy his time with drills and chess and volunteering in Medical. Now that winter was in full swing and people were getting cold and frail (or at least as cold and frail as someone who was training intensely to go to war could get), the nurses needed more and more help. Most of the stuff was retrieving supplies from other parts of the camp, or holding something open while the doctors did their thing. It wasn't too busying, but it made Mikey feel better about himself. At least it was better for him than staying around Gerard in their tent.

As the days went by, Mikey became a little resentful towards Gerard. It was like he wasn't even trying to get through it and live as peacefully as he could in an Army training camp. But Mikey reminded himself how sad Gerard was before he and Frank got together and how Mikey felt the same after he arrived in 1934. Hopefully Frank was dealing with the change in surroundings better than Mikey did. Frank had it better than Mikey, hopefully at least, since Mikey didn't expect to not be able to return, and plus, Frank wasn't the one who traveled two hundred years in the past. 

Still, it couldn't be easy. From what Mikey knew, the ships were pretty crammed and the food was even worse than at the camp since it had to last longer than a few days. At least on the ship, Frank didn't have to deal with an alternate version of his brother annoying him with his whining. 

Okay, it wasn't that bad. Mikey appreciated that he was able to still go through his drills without having a breakdown, and he was definitely getting better. Give it a month, Mikey figured, and he would be good as new. In the meantime, Mikey would just have to deal with it. 

So he did. He was right, Gerard did get better at an interval that wasn't too agonizingly slow. He talked to Mikey a little more as time passed, though Mikey made sure never to bring up Frank, which was hard, because he knew that was the reason Gerard was suffering and he would probably be better if he just talked about it, dammit! But Mikey couldn't force him to do anything, so for the moment, they just made small talk. It was awkward as hell, especially considering the deep conversations they were having in the middle of the night, just a few months ago. It felt like years, though. Time always seemed to fly by, and yet never pass fast enough in the camp.

Time - it was an odd concept, one that humans had been studying in detail for about a hundred years, when Mikey was from. Here, they were still stuck in the belief that time was a fixed progression of events, that it could never be changed and that travelling backwards along the axis was impossible. That was so odd to Mikey. Time was a progression of events, sure, but one's mind could make it feel slower or faster, depending on an individual's mood and feelings. the timeline that Mikey was experiencing was one of many billions that were possible. No one of those possibilities was more 'true' than the others. 

Maybe that was why not knowing the future made Mikey so distressed. Because he was in the past, he usually could know roughly what would happen next, because he had lived through the consequences of that event. Now, there was absolutely no knowing. Was this how people navigated the progression of time before Travelling through it was not only proved possible, but capitalized upon to the point where most citizens had seen the past in some capacity?

It was such an odd thing, too- people had always wondered what it would be like to go and visit the past again. They wrote stories about aliens and humans alike who had the power to visit the past or future, even when the most trusted physicists had 'proven' it could never be a reality. 

Maybe that was human nature - everyone wanted to know about alternate realities (which they likely did not believe in) where people they could relate to themselves could do things that seemed extraordinary and completely genius. 

As he pondered this, Mikey lay in his tent, listening to the soothing rhythm of Gerard breathing. If Gerard found out he was from the future, how would he handle it? Mikey wanted to think he would just adapt to it and accept it, but he had a feeling that these people just weren't ready for their entire worldview to change so drastically. Maybe the reason humans didn't discover that they could time travel until a few years before Mikey was born was that they just wouldn't be able to handle it. Or maybe that was just Mikey pretending he was somehow superior to the people living in this time. 

They definitely knew their way around better than he did, probably a result of living there their entire lives, but for some reason Mikey wanted so badly to be better than them, to have the upper hand in some way. These people were nothing different from the types of people he encountered in 2143, but the aura that surrounded them always seemed to be more intimidating.

Mikey shook his head at that thought. What was he doing? None of that made sense. Although, neither should his presence in 1943, maybe he was just trying to make something make sense. 

The rhetorical thinking passed the time well, though. It was an easy thing to do while he waited for Gerard to start talking to him again, as he waited for Pete to find him, as he waited for June to come, when he would be sent off to fight in the war. 

He got off of his mattress, where he was sitting, to go to the recreation hall, where he could play chess. It would at least keep him from trying to be fake poetic, at least. He got there agonizingly slow, it seemed, he didn't usually take that long to get to the place. He finally arrived, but when he looked up, all he could see was a tent. Frank's old tent, now inhabited by somebody else. He stood there for a minute, asking himself why he was there and why he let himself go there, when someone poked their head out of the tent.

"What do you want?" A man asked, clearly annoyed. His hair was dark and he looked at least a few years younger than Mikey. He wouldn't doubt that he had lied about his age. He was new, probably Frank's replacement, yet he already was talking to Mikey, who was older and more experienced, with no fear at all. Maybe he had relatives in the military. 

"Sorry, I- I just saw an interesting bird. Up in the tree," Mikey muttered, pointing weakly at the tree. The younger guy snorted.

"Can you do that away from my tent? I'm trying to sleep and you're creeping me the fuck out."

"Yeah," Mikey said, moving away, hands in his pockets. "Sorry."

The guy ducked back into the tent, rolling his eyes. Mikey walked to the rec hall, making sure that was where he was going. How the hell did he end up going to Frank's tent? He wasn't thinking of him at all, he was just thinking of clearing his mind with a game of chess, none of which had to do with Frank. 

Although, the thought of Frank hadn't really left his mind since he left. But what with Gerard being so annoying and mopey, Mikey didn't want to let himself get as sad. It wasn't fun to watch. Maybe he was bottling up his feelings, and subconsciously walking to Frank's tent was his mind's way of letting him know not to ignore it. 

He stood now in front of the rec hall, the bold face of the letters painted on the side of the building staring at him. Daring him to go inside and challenge another trainee. He put his hand on the door handle. It felt cold and unfamiliar. He stood there for a few seconds, thinking. Then, he removed his hand from the handle and let his face relax. He shot a quick grin to the window in case anybody was watching him and moved his feet towards his and Gerard's tent. 

They needed to talk.

When he got to the tent, Gerard was either about to fall asleep or he had been woken up by the sound of Mikey coming towards the tent. Either way, he looked drowsy and aloof. Mikey flashed him a grin. Gerard sat up, rubbing his left eye.

"We're going to talk. I'm going to say the same things I've been saying to you since he left, except this time, you're going to listen and remember and actually fucking talk to me, because this" Mikey gestured, "isn't working. For either of us. Okay?"

Gerard looked confused, but he nodded slowly. "O...kay"

Mikey signed, sitting down next to Gerard. "So today, I was going to go to the rec hall to play chess, but for some reason - I guess I was on autopilot or something - I ended up right in front of Frank's old tent. I think I've been so distracted with trying to get you out of this rut that  
I haven't spent any time worrying about myself. So, here I am," He started. He looked Gerard in the eye once he finished saying it. Gerard seemed put off by this, uncomfortably shifting his gaze. Mikey understood and dropped the eye contact. "I miss him too, you know," he said softly. "He seemed like he was the only sane person here besides you and me. But you and me- we got sad a lot. He never seemed to. He was always down for talking about anything."

Gerard nodded. "Yeah. But he could be really intimidating sometimes, you know? And I was always so scared that I would bring him down if I talked to him about what was bothering me. Sometimes it feels like that with you, too."

"Gerard," Mikey started, "I mean- I've got problems of my own. We can work together."

"I know, I know," Gerard said, shaking his head. "I just don't want," he sniffed. "I don't want you to think I'm, I don't know, weak or whatever."

"Gerard, you're not- you're one of the strongest people I know, I mean, you're been through so much and yet you're still here. Everyone in this camp is so fucking strong. Just because you get a little emotional doesn't mean you couldn't take down almost everyone outside of here. Do you realize that after we're done here, people will treat us like the heroes we are? It's all going to pay off one day, you know," Mikey consoled him. Gerard nodded like he didn't believe it. "Would I lie to you?" Mikey asked.

"No," Gerard answered.

"Just trust me, Gee. I'm telling you. This won't matter in the future."

"I know, but it feels like it matters so much right now. Maybe I'm just, like, getting all of the sadness and shit out of my system so I don't think about it later."

"Gerard, I guarantee you that this isn't healthy," Mikey countered, looking Gerard in the eye again. This time, he didn't look away, instead, he looked deeper into Mikey's eyes, and Mikey could tell he was trying to accept what Mikey was telling him.

"So what do I do then? How do I stop feeling like this?" Gerard said finally. He clearly meant it and wanted to get better, which Mikey considered a success.

"Well, for starters, there's not ignoring me, but you're doing pretty well on that so far. I usually try to focus during drills more, you know, to take my mind off it. I also play chess, but I know that's not really your thing," Mikey said.

"I like to read," Gerard responded. "I used to read all the time before I got drafted. I wanted to be a writer when I was a kid. Haven't even touched a book since I got here, though."

"That's nice," Mikey commented, "They've got a pretty extensive collection of books in the rec hall. If you wanted to, you could even take paper and pens from the front desk and write stories."

Gerard shook his head. "I don't like writing as much as I thought I did when I was a kid. I don't like how everything has to be structured. I'd rather just write what sounded good to me. But I'll definitely try to read some books."

"Have you ever read A Tale of Two Cities?" Mikey asked.

"No. Is it any good?" 

"I enjoyed it," Mikey shrugged. "I know they have it at the library here, though."

"Okay," Gerard agreed. "Yeah, I'll do that." 

The corners of Mikey's mouth lifted, almost enough to count as a smile. "Good."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so short, ive been super busy and i dont enjoy writing this as much as i used to, if im completely honest. i will be finishing this tho, we're almost at the end!!


	18. Chapter 18

The next few days went over pretty easily. Mikey still hadn't played a single game of chess since he confronted Gerard, but that was because he was catching up on his sleep. As it turned out, all of that pent up worrying about Gerard and Frank and himself really tired him out. He was using every second of free time trying to sleep. 

Gerard talked to him like normal now, which was a big improvement. Mealtimes were a bit awkward, though, since neither of them were big talkers. Usually Frank kept conversations afloat. Mikey secretly hoped that they would find another friend to hang out with eventually, since the two of them were getting a little lonely with only having each other. No one could ever replace Frank, though, that was for sure. 

About a week and a half after he confronted Gerard, Mikey went back to the rec hall to place himself in the next tournament. His challenger, he read on the board, was named Robert Bryar. Mikey didn't recognize the name from any of the previous tournaments, though he had been out of it for a little while, so maybe Bryar had just started playing while Mikey was gone. The game was set to start in half an hour, so Mikey sat himself down near the bookshelves and picked up a book that was on the table next to him.

Mikey was only a few pages into Pride and Prejudice when a man came up to him, standing right in front of him. Mikey looked up from his book when the man coughed.

He was a bit bigger than most of the men in the camp, but whether it was from muscle mass or not, Mikey couldn't tell. He was wearing a sweater that covered most of his body. Mikey knew some people got colder than others, but how was this dude that cold? Sure, it was cold outside, but the building was nice and warm. 

"You're Mikey Way, correct?" The guy asked, his voice deep and clear. Mikey looked him in the eye and nodded slowly. He knew what this guy was trying to do, assert his dominance over Mikey, possibly for the game, possibly just for the power trip. But two could play at that game. Mikey was tired of people trying that with him. He had seniority over most of the people at the camp by now, and although he still looked frail and thin, he was getting quite a bit stronger. "I'm Bob Bryar. We're playing each other in a few minutes. I just thought i would introduce myself."Bryar stuck out his hand. Mikey shook it, making sure his grip was more firm than Bob's. 

"How polite," Mikey smiled, fully aware how unnatural it looked on his usually solemn face. "Are you new to the tournament?"

"I used to be in the tournament when I was here for the Great War," Bryar said. "I thought I would join again to pass the time while I do my training again."

"They make you go through training again?" Mikey asked, quirking an eyebrow. This guy fought in World War One and wanted to fight again? He didn't look old enough to have been in that war, but maybe he was older than he looked and had lied about his age to enlist.

"Yeah, the equipment is different. And plus, it's been a few years. You forget things," Bob explained. "Doesn't mean I like it, though."

"I see," Mikey said, putting his book down on the table, leaving it open face down. He had no intention of ever picking it back up, and he knew it damaged the spine, but he really did not want this guy to think he was some kind of puny little boy like tons of other people at the camp had made him out to be.

"I guess I'll see you soon, then," Bob said after a little bit of silence. Mikey nodded silently and Bob left to go talk to someone else Mikey didn't recognize. Mikey closed his eyes for a second, thinking about how the game would go down. Bob seemed nice enough despite the patronizing aura he had to him. Hopefully he would be an easy win, though he really didn't seem like it. But half of the guys who seemed all macho and cunning outside of the game were really just terrible players once they had a board in front of them anyways, so Mikey wasn't really all that scared. 

He spent the rest of the time leading up to the game people-watching. A few people came in to spectate the game, and they chatted as they waited for it to start. From what Mikey could pick up, they were mostly there because they knew Bob's story and wanted to see how this would turn out. Mikey really hoped he would win this, mainly because if Bob beat him, it would set him back pretty far in the leaderboard. And also because if he spent so much time trying to not be scrutinized by this guy just to lose to him, it would be tremendously embarrassing. 

Eventually, the supervisor rang a bell and called for Michael and Robert to present themselves at the game table. Mikey got out of his seat and worked his way through the people waiting to watch the game. He sat down at the end of the table with the white pieces, since Bob was already there and had chosen the black pieces. 

The game then started. Bob made the first kill, taking one of Mikey's pawns and then another, which was fine with Mikey, since the pawns weren't all that important. But then he took one of Mikey's knights, so Mikey took a bishop and a pawn from him. The game went on like that, both of them seeming to be keeping up with each other, but then Bob caught Mikey in a check, which startled Mikey. He didn't see it coming at all. He moved his king away, but then Bob got him in another check. Mikey stared at Bob's pieces, trying to understand why this was happening, when he recognized the strategy. It was the one Lindsey had taught him. He smiled to himself and moved his king away again, this time so that Bob couldn't easily get him. 

Bob, unfortunately, only caught on to the fact that Mikey knew his strategy a few turns later. By that time, Mikey had set up a solid path to victory, and Bob didn't even realize when Mikey took his queen that he was so close to a check mate. Foolishly, he unblocked his king with a pawn to protect his remaining rook, ad Mikey moved to catch him in a checkmate.

Mikey smiled as he watched the look of disappointment and regret wash over Bob's face. He heard the small crowd (okay, it was more like half a dozen people) around them start to cheer. Mikey extended his hand to Bob, who reluctantly shook it.

"Good game," he said, making no effort to hide the snarkiness in his voice.

"Yeah," Bob said, and he sounded like he meant it. Mikey almost regretted being a little bit rude to him. It had been an entertaining game, after all, and Mikey didn't play because he wanted to win, he played for the distraction and fun that it gave him.

But then again, Bob had treated him the same way before the game, he didn't need any pity now that the game was over. As Mikey was presented with his reward, a box of doughnuts, Bob left the room, pardoning himself as he pushed people aside. 

-

A day and a box of doughnuts eaten later, Gerard and Mikey were at the dining hall, eating lunch and talking about the first few chapters of A Tale of Two Cities, when Bob Bryar approached their table.

"Hey Mikey, is it okay if I sit here? I want to talk about yesterday's game," He asked from above them. Mikey's eyebrows flew up in surprise, but he answered a 'sure' anyways. This had happened a few times before, previous opponents who had lost to Mikey would want to chat with him about his strategy and how they could improve. Mikey wasn't too keen on letting Bob get better, since he almost beat Mikey, but he didn't have the heart to refuse. And plus, he didn't enter the competitions to win, he just wanted to have fun, which he did. "I just wanted to know how and why I lost so I can maybe win my next game."

Mikey swallowed the food he was chewing before speaking. "I recognized your strategy. It was one of the first ones I learned, actually. I knew how to get out of your hold, so I did. It was pretty simple, actually. I'm surprised you used it, considering how standard it is and how many people know how to escape it."

Bob sighed. "I guess that makes sense," he said, "I didn't do much reading on chess, I mainly developed my own strategy by playing. But I could see that you were going to beat me and were in the perfect position for me to do so, so I used the only book strategy I was confident in."

Mikey hummed, nodding. "And it backfired. Listen, these strategies aren't just to be used when they're convenient. You have to get used to when it's a good idea to play them and when it's not by practicing. For me at least, playing chess is half book studying and half real life experience," he explained. Bob nodded, taking in his words.

"I know it's a lot to ask, but do you think you could show me exactly what technique you used to beat me? You seem really knowledgeable and I don't really know anyone else here who plays that I'm not going to be challenging anytime soon," Bob said. 

Mikey considered it for a second, looking to Gerard, whose face didn't seem to be hiding any secrets that would help him make his decision. He turned back to Bob, looking at his eyes. He seemed to be an okay guy now that he had warmed up to Mikey, and Mikey did kind of feel bad for beating him and being so condescending. Plus, maybe he would make friends with Bob and he and Gerard wouldn't feel so lonely, with it just being the two of them. "Sure," he smiled, "They say the best way to learn is to teach, don't they? And plus, I don't have anything to lose."

"Thank you so much," Bob said. "I guess I'll be out of your hair now." 

Mikey watched as Bob got up and went back to where he was sitting before. "See you later!" 

Once he was out of sight, Gerard turned to Mikey. "That the guy you won the doughnuts from beating?"

"Yeah," Mikey said. "I was kind of mean to him before the match but I feel kind of bad about it now. I guess this is my way of, like, making it up."

Gerard nodded. "He didn't seem like he had anything against you. I'm sure most people act like that before a match, right? You have to intimidate your opponent."

"Yeah, but he ended up being really good about losing and stuff," Mikey responded. 

"I see," Gerard hummed. "Hey, if you ever want me to-" 

They were interrupted by the announcement that lunch was over and that the drills would begin soon. Gerard got up and started throwing away his garbage without finishing his sentence. Mikey wondered why for a split second before brushing it aside and clearing his own spot on the table.

 

-

Mikey met with Bob the next day after they had finished their drills. They took a seat at one of the chess tables used for practice. Mikey spent most of the time explaining, but he knew that Bob was listening and following what he was saying respectfully. It felt good to be teaching somebody something. It had always been a pleasure of Mikey's to impart some of his knowledge onto other people, it made him feel smart and respected. He hadn't gotten to do it in a long while, however, since he was constantly in the position of the student around here. 

It also made Mikey feel like he was learning, too. It made him feel more sure of his moves because he had to explain them to somebody else. It was also cool to think that nine months ago, he was being taught how to play by Lindsey, and now he was teaching somebody else. Maybe when he got back home, he would teach Gerard (the real Gerard) to play. 

God, that sounded nice to Mikey. He missed Gerard so much, he missed the connection that they had as brothers. This Gerard, Neo-Gerard, wasn't very enthusiastic about chess, and Mikey doubted his brother back home would be, either. But since they were brothers, they got to force each other to do things that weren't always the most interesting sometimes. They had done it when they were growing up, when their parents wanted them to spend some time together. Gerard would teach Mikey all these things about art that he learned, and Mikey would teach him things he learned in school, little facts that he had found out. Mikey used to be a big fan of fun facts and weird stories, and would relay these to Gerard and their parents constantly. That was probably why their parents thought Mikey was so academically oriented even if he wasn't really.

Or maybe it was just that Mikey was the favourite child and they wanted to cling to anything that would show that he was better than Gerard. Really, when Mikey thought about it, he probably learned more from his brother's art lessons than Gerard do from knowing how to know when someone is lying. 

After they finished their makeshift match of chess, Bob and Mikey sat at the table, pieces put back into place (Mikey always made sure to put the pieces back, setting up a chess board, especially when you were just starting to learn, was hard and frustrating). They chatted until the bell rung, letting them know that it was getting close to bed time, talking about life at the camp, Bob's family, what the battlefield would be like. Bob seemed to be a pretty honest man, taking no shit from anybody. The war had definitely worn him out, Mikey thought. His manner was very impatient and harsh, in a way that could come off as mean or cruel if you didn't want to pay real close attention. In reality, Bob was a nice man, thoughtful and insightful. He was just tired of the world. Mikey could relate. 

Mikey liked Bob, even if at first he didn't. Bob was complex, just like everybody else. Mikey just lost sight of that when he first met him. He invited Bob to hang out later, with him and Gerard, and Bob accepted. 

Later, after lights out, Gerard asked Mikey how his meeting with Bob went. Mikey told him it went great, and that he was starting to really like Bob despite their awkward beginning.

"You like him... like that?" Gerard asked him. Mikey furrowed his brows.

"No. I don't think I could ever like someone like that, not here. Not just that Pete's back home, but my mind's just not in the right state to find someone attractive, you know? Not someone new, anyways," Mikey answered honestly. "Besides, I don't have as good luck as you do. Bob's nice, but I don't think he would be okay with... you know."

Saying that felt so completely foreign to Mikey. Before he was living in a time 200 years before his own, he could never imagine thinking someone was nice if you excused their homophobia, because he could never imagine excusing homophobia. He had never met anybody in 2034 who thought that homophobia was okay. He was sure they were out there, but they were usually shunned by society, along with what remained of neo-nazism and the KKK.

"The thing with falling for Frank, though, was that I didn't even know that it was okay. I didn't know that it was even possible that we would get to where we did," Gerard said. "So sometimes, your heart can't even consider whether or not it would be safe to feel that way. It just feels."

Mikey nodded, even though Gerard couldn't see. "Good night, Gerard.

"Good night, Mikey."


	19. Chapter 19

As the weeks went by and Mikey got to know Bob a little better, he started feeling less and less lonely. Bob ate lunch with them often, and Mikey could tell Gerard was relieved to have someone to talk to that wasn't him.

Of course, it was a little awkward between Gerard and Bob at first, since they didn't really know each other, but once the ice was broken, they hit it off pretty well.

Bob seemed like the kind of person that you could trust. And having people you could trust was crucial, especially when you were firing guns every single day, training for armed combat in another continent. 

Not that he and Bob would be fighting at the same time as each other, Bob was too new for that. But knowing how to form trustful friendships with others was a good skill to have, since you never know who will have to carry you aside to the nurses to treat your wounds and it's usually a good thing if the person carrying you cares about whether or not you actually die or not. Plus, things could get a little boring if you're all alone. 

But then there was always the possibility of your friends dying on the battlefield as you watched, which couldn't be a pleasant experience. Some soldiers, Mikey had heard, completely swore off getting into any friendships with fellow fighters, since it was easier to not have any bonds with anyone lest they be broken. Personally, Mikey figured that he could deal with his friends dying, but not with the numbing loneliness that must come with the no-friendship rule. What were even the consequences of Gerard dying? Hew was an alternate version of someone Mikey already knew back home, so what would happen if Neo-Gerard died? 

It seemed to Mikey that it would just cause a huge paradox. If this Gerard died, would the other one, Mikey's brother, still exist? Would he change at all? Or has he been different since the conception of Neo-Gerard? Did Neo-Gerard exist before Mikey arrived in the past, or was he brought into reality with Mikey's arrival?

There was absolutely no way to find out, which frustrated Mikey. There were just so many things that didn't add up, and Mikey was supposed to know things about time travel. He was supposed to be the one who made it add up, who found out the answers to those questions and then fix them until they made sense. 

Maybe playing God like that, the way he had been given the power to do, had really fucked with him. But he didn't feel that way, he felt like it gave him a better outlook on the world. Until now. But this was an unforeseen circumstance - there was no way anybody could have predicted this.

In any case, Bob only thought they were a little bit weird, which was a definite plus. He didn't seem to catch on to anything Mikey didn't want him to, for which he was very grateful. He did get confused at Mikey's references and lingo from the future, but he let Mikey tell him it was just a cultural thing. Bob didn't seem to mind that Mikey was from another country, either, which was another plus. He knew that Mikey was undocumented and earning his right to stay in the country by fighting, and he still respected Mikey as a person. Mikey supposed it was because he had already fought in a war and knew it didn't matter why you were there, since there was a high chance you wouldn't even make it out alive. In a normal person's life, their service could only account for a small portion of who they are as a person.

The idea was completely foreign to Mikey. Everything that happened since seven or eight months ago all seemed monumental - meeting Lindsey, joining the Army, meeting Gerard for the second time in his lifetime - there was no way he would ever forget. 

He wrote a few paragraphs about Bob in his letter to the future, for his own benefit mostly. In order to categorize his thoughts. Sometimes he wished that he could hand the letter to someone and they could read it and give him advice, but there was absolutely no way he could ever do that with someone here. If they knew about where Mikey was really from...

He didn't let himself continue that thought. He was, honestly, tired of thinking like that. 

He entered the cafeteria then, Gerard and Bob already in the line up for food, chatting. Gerard liked to talk with his hands a lot, and Bob usually remained stoic, unmoving. It was rare that you could get so much as a facial expression out of him. Mikey approached the line, keeping track of what Gerard looked like he was talking about. His hands were flying around in the air, it was entertaining to watch.

"Hey Mikes," Gerard said when he got close enough. Mikey slid between Gerard and Bob, catching the eye of the guy behind Gerard and trying to convey his apology for skipping the line in his face. The guy didn't seem to care at all, for which Mikey was so relieved. He hated having to justify himself to the dudes around here who thought they could push him over like that. "Why're you late this time?"

Mikey shrugged. "Running drills. Officer Kirk wanted to keep me later to yell at me for being slow." 

Gerard rolled his eyes. "You were keeping up just fine, I swear, they all must hate you. And for no reason!"

"Yeah, they do that," Bob said. "They'll pretend they have a reason for doing it but they really don't. And it's always guys like you, Mikey, tall, skinny. Never happened to me but tons of my friends would get called out like that. Sometimes, if I was feeling brave, I'd pick a fight with the officer, but that never ended well. I'm surprised they even wanted me back after how much the officers hated me."

The guy behind Gerard piped up. "They'll take anyone they can at this point. I mean, if they're letting women in..."

Bob quirked an eyebrow, pulling on his tough guy persona. "Oh? And you don't think women aren't just as capable as men at doing this?"

The guy snorted. "It's basic biology. They aren't made to fight."

"A woman pushed you out of her and you don't think they can shoot a gun and march? I'd like to see you come anywhere close to what a woman is capable of," Bob said, rolling up his sleeves.

"Is that a threat? You know I could have you reported for that," the guy told him, his lips twitching into a frown momentarily. He was scared of Bob, Mikey could tell. When Mikey tried to show Bob he could be tough, Bob backed down eventually. But he didn't look like he was backing down here. Mikey admired that about him, that he was willing to not only stand up for women, who were severely discriminated against in this time period (Mikey tried to remember when women got the right to vote but couldn't. His got said 1960, but that seemed too late). 

"It wasn't, but I'd say that reporting me for threats would be a lot more cowardly than actually putting up a fight. I bet any woman in your situation would have me beat in a second. But nice to know you'll throw an entire sex under the bus just to preserve you egotistical fantasy," Bob smiled nonchalantly at the guy, then turned back and stepped forward in the line. 

Bob was a good man, Mikey observed as he looked at Bob's back, pointedly not turning around to talk with Mikey and Gerard again. Mikey didn't mind, he knew that looking back would give the asshole a chance to say something again.

Mikey couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he told Bob he was into guys. Would he take it well? Standing up for women when they were well on their way to equality and supporting someone who experiences same-gender attraction when it was probably illegal were two entirely different things. He could get discharged if anyone wanted to report him. 

It was a stupid thought, anyways. There was no way Bob could ever be fine enough with it that he'd keep it a secret. He had some values, sure, and Mikey admired that, but he wasn't the best guy around. He was still an alpha male-type guy, he hadn't necessarily shown himself to be completely trustworthy, especially not for a situation like this.

Besides, Mikey was doing just fine without letting him know. Gerard knew, and he had it all written down in his letter anyways. He could keep it a secret. There was no rush. 

They got their food in silence, then Bob directed them to a table to the right side of the dining hall. The food looked unappealing as always, but Mikey's grumbling stomach was annoying enough that he would probably devour the food in a matter of minutes. Usually, he was a slow eater, but recently, he had to speed up or he would be tasting what must have literally been dog food for long enough that his appetite would completely have disappeared. But then it would come back again, and Mikey would have nothing to eat.

Once they had all sat down, Bob banged his fist into the table loudly. Some people turned their heads briefly, but then went back to chatting. Nobody around there had any time for other people, it seemed. Maybe it was the cold. Mikey could have sworn people were nicer when he first arrived. Or maybe the niceness all came from Frank, and now that he was gone...

Bob stabbed at whatever meat they had been served angrily. "Fucking idiots. I don't understand what it is about this place that makes everyone like that," he sighed, "But I guess I'm guilty of it too."

"It's the competition. The officers make it seem like there's some sort of prize if you do well at training when in reality all you get is less time spent here and you get on the battlefield sooner," Gerard pointed out. There was some kind of sad aura to his words. Maybe he had been pondering Frank, too. Or maybe he was just being Gerard. He had a tendency to do that.

Mikey shoveled some "food" into his mouth. Bob nodded at Gerard. "And I hate myself for falling for it."

"We all do, to some extent," Mikey said, chewing. He swallowed and added, "Honestly., Bob, I think you've done a pretty good job of not being an asshole. Sure, you can get all tough sometimes, but we all do. At least you know when to give it up."

"I just get so angry, that's my problem," Bob said, his grip still tight on his fork. 

"But you get angry for the right reasons," Mikey said, pointing his own for at Bob. "You care about the right things. That's what's important. It's okay to get emotional. We all do. I mean, we're in one of the most stressful situations we'll ever be in, for God's sake." As he said it, he thought about how true it was. He hoped, prayed that nothing like this would ever happen to him again. If that meant staying away from time travel, so be it. 

There was silence as Bob thought. Mikey took the time to get a few more bites of beans in. Then, Bob opened his mouth. "I wasn't like this last time," he admitted. "Everything is so different. The first time around, sure, there were rivalries and things in the camp. But it seems this war is different."

"Could it be the reason we're fighting?" Gerard suggested. The other two looked at him expectantly. "I mean, we're fighting against an authoritarian, fascist government. Maybe some of us, instead of examining our own beliefs, act like we're superior to others? To make up for it." His sentences definitely sounded more like questions thaqn statements, but Bob nodded his head anyway. 

"I totally understand what you're saying. Maybe that's it. Or maybe it's just the difference in generation. The men I fought with were a lot more mature, they didn't let themselves be distracted by stupid things like these men do," Bob sighed. "But no, I can't ignore that I've participated in some of the angst around here."

"So what if you have? At least you're not spreading out your sexist beliefs," Mikey countered.

"Doesn't mean it's fine," said Bob, like it was obvious. Maybe it was. Maybe Mikey was trying to make Bob out to be a better man than he really was. But then again, would a bad man admit to his failures and insist that they exist when they were disputed?

Mikey didn't know. He looked down at his tray, which unsurprisingly gave him no answers. Though with the way Mikey's life had been recently, there was no telling what was the right thing to do.

-

He stayed up a little later than was technically allowed that night, writing the letter. He had written a few paragraphs about Bob already, but he wanted to update.

_Bob is an enigma. He's wise and intelligent, but he never speaks much. I constantly wonder how trustworthy he is. I wonder if he would be tolerant of mine and Gerard's orientations. Of course, I would never dream of endangering Gerard like that, but I wonder if I could tell him about myself. He's a good friend, he seems like the kind of man you would want on your side in any dispute._

_Today, he stood up to another man who was saying that women shouldn't be in the Army on account of how they're apparently "weaker" than men. It's shocking to hear opinions like that even though I've been living here for nearly a year. I never expect people to be that despicable. Bob has good enough morals to know that women are equal to men and all other genders, but being the way I am could get me sent back to Lindsey's if anybody who disagreed with it found out._

-

As the weeks went on, Bob seemed to open up more about his personal life. He was much older than Gerard and Mikey, nearing forty years old. He was married and had no children, but hopefully after the war, he would. His wife was a good ten years younger than him anyways, they would still be able to conceive. 

Bob never expected Gerard or Mikey to tell him about themselves, he understood that especially in a place like this, people were touchy about that kind of thing. Mikey appreciated it. 

There were several occasions where Mikey wanted to share something that he found cute about Pete, like the way he danced so stupidly or the everlasting glint in his eye when someone made him laugh. But he didn't dare say anything . Instead, he practiced chess with Bob, who was getting pretty good at it as Mikey taught him some of the things he had learned. Bob would even offer new ideas to what they could improve on in terms of strategy and how to do it. They were a good team, him and Bob. Bob was only a few levels beneath Mikey in the tournament, only a month after Mikey beat him.

Mikey himself was working his way towards the top. He had only lost to one person this time around, and that man was almost guaranteed a first place winner. That gave Mikey a little bit of hope, he knew that eventually he would play someone who was in the same place as his adversary (fifth) and could probably beat them. 

The funny thing was, Mikey was never told that the guy who beat him (Derrick or something was his name) that one time and was making his way to first was leaving for the battlefield until Mikey took a glance at the leaderboard and noticed he was suddenly in fourth. His mouth dropped open. He was sitting in the rec hall, watching a game between two men of low ranking. It was only him and some other guy spectating. Mikey was there with the intention to read something for a bit, but when he saw that nobody was watching their match, he sat himself down in one of the chairs near the chess table. He remembered what it was like when he was just starting, knew how much it would have encouraged him if one of the people in higher levels were watching him play, so he decided to watch.

They weren't the greatest players he had seen, but it was interesting to watch. He tried not to focus too much on what he would do if his competitor was making the moves they did, but it was hard yo get himself out of analysis-mode. Eventually, though, another guy popped in and seemed to make the same decision as Mikey, sitting down next to him.

"You play?" The guy asked. He seemed to be chewing something, but Mikey didn't question it.

"Yeah. Mikey Way, I'm sixth," Mikey murmured, trying not to distract the players, not taking his eyes off the board. The guy leaned over to see the leaderboard behind Mikey.

"Fourth," he said. 

"What?" Mikey looked at the guy. 

"You're fourth, see? You said sixth. I heard Garrett Smith got sent off. Don't know why you skipped two levels though," he said in his Jersey accent, which Mikey nearly didn't recognize. Nearly everyone who spoke the same first language in Mikey's time had the same voice, same intonations.

"Oh," Mikey said, finally looking at the leaderboard himself. Surely enough, a Michael W. was right there in the spot for fourth place. And yet, right below him, was Robert B.

How did he advance so quickly? He was at least five or so levels behind Mikey last time he checked the leaderboard. Maybe the training Mikey was giving him was paying off. Despite how he knew he should be happy for his friend, Mikey couldn't bring himself to wipe the frown off of his face. 

"Yeah. I guess they calculated the points up again in a different way or something," the guy said, then let out an 'oh' as one of the players put the other in a check. Mikey furrowed his brows. He got up out of the chair he was in. He needed to go find out what was happening, and he was going to ask Bob first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaa so sorry this took so long, i havent been feeling it much at all lately. this fic will hopefully be wrapped up before christmas (i really hope)


	20. Chapter 20

Mikey wasn't jealous. He wasn't. Or at least that was what he was telling himself. He just wanted to find out why Bob was so close to him all of a sudden, see if any of it was a mistake, or if it was purely all Bob's (and Mikey's) hard work.

He was making his way to Bob's tent, where he was the most likely to be. Even if he wasn't there, his tentmate would probably be able to give Mikey an idea of where to find him. He thought of what exactly he was going to say to make sure Bob didn't think he was jealous or suspicious (he definitely wasn't). He'd have to present the information in a calm, rational way, like 'hey, I noticed this and thought it was surprising, I didn't know you were doing so well', never implying anything about it being abnormal. 

Mikey and Bob had agreed to never attending each other's games. They both found it weird, which was a relief for Mikey to hear since he hated it when he was being watched by people he knew. He felt like he had an expectation to live up to when they did. 

Luckily, when he got to Bob's tent and asked if Bob was there, it was Bob's voice that replied to him.

"Yeah, come in," he said, "I'm home alone, don't worry."

Mikey pushed aside the opening and crawled in. "Hey," he greeted. Bob put down the book he was reading.

"What's going on?" he asked, his head tilted to the side, uncharacteristically expressive for Bob.

"I, um," Mikey started. "I was watching two newbies playing chess and when I looked to the leaderboard, you were in fifth and I was in fourth. I just wanted to congratulate you, you know? I didn't think you were getting that good," Mikey said, cringing internally at that last sentence. He wished he had thought to phrase things better. But he was rarely any good with talking to people, so hopefully Bob wouldn't find it offensive.

Bob never really found anything at all offensive, so he just furrowed his brows. "Newbies?" he asked, then shook his head, like it didn't matter, like he was erasing the question. "How am I in fifth? I was in tenth last time I checked."

"I thought so. I was in sixth, so it's not a huge leap. Apparently the guy in first got sent off last week, so that explains a one-level jump, but I have no idea how you went up five. My theory is that maybe they calculated things differently, gave people points for things other than games won."

"Maybe," Bob said, scratching his chin. "I can ask the officer in charge if you want, he and I are on pretty good terms."

"Yeah," Mikey said, "Yeah. You should do that. Except maybe later, since there's a short amount of time left before firing drills."

"I have marching drills, but yeah, you're right. I can probably flag him down and get an answer from him by tomorrow, if you don't want to have to keep reminding me."

"You promise you won't forget?" Mikey said hesitantly. He really felt the need to know why they were so close in the competition as sson as possible, but he would never admit to himself why. He didn't even know why he felt that being jealous of Bob would be so bad. Maybe it was because of the first time they met and Mikey's refusal to be afraid of him, and because of that, he never wanted to be afraid of (or threatened by) him again.

"I promise. Bob Bryar never forgets," Bob smiled. Mikey returned the gesture, letting the corner of his mouth quirk up a bit before getting up and out of the tent, heading back to his own to lie down and feel bad about himself. 

-

Mikey and Gerard went back to the dining hall from marching drills, laughing over some joke somebody next to Mikey said and Mikey repeated to Gerard. They found Bob at a table after getting their trays of food and sat down on either side of him. He had already finished his lunch, or however much of his lunch he found edible enough.

"In my - however many - years of being in various places for this country, none of the food has ever been anywhere close to good," he grumbled. Mikey and Gerard laughed.

"Yeah, I guess their budget's not good enough for anything other than dog food," Gerard commented. 

Mikey nodded. "Hey Bob, did you get the chance to speak to..."

"Yes," Bob interrupted. "They just recalculated scores to match some new system they're trying to put in. He explained it all to me but I didn't get it. Wasn't that interesting anyways," he elaborated, swirling together what was left on his tray into one big pile of mush. 

"Oh," was all Mikey could say. He was expecting (or possibly hoping) it was all a mistake, and that he and Bob would be comfortably separated by at least two levels again. 

"Yeah," Bob said, still concentrated on whatever he was doing on his tray. "Oh, and we're playing each other next."

Mikey's mouth dropped open. Then he shut it again, as to not show too much of the gross chewed-up mush inside. "What?" he said once he had swallowed. 

"Yeah," was all Bob said, shrugging. This was definitely not a shrug-worthy situation.

"But they can't have two people play each other in a row, that- it's not allowed to happen."

"It's not in a row," Bob pointed out. "They decided to erase all that. So we're playing each other."

Mikey furrowed his eyebrows. "But why?"

Bob raised his in response. "Why not? We're right next to each other, Mikes. It makes tons of sense. Is there a problem?" Mikey shook his head, taking a bite of food so he wouldn't have to speak. Bob gave him a knowing smile anyways. "Don't worry, I get it, man. You taught me basically everything I know to have gotten me to this point, you shouldn't have to lose to me in the tournament. You're totally entitled to your frustration."

Mikey raised his eyebrows. "I'm not angry, Bob."

Bob smirked. "Of course you are. You don't have to lie, you know."

Mikey rolled his eyes, but he couldn't deny the truth of what Bob was telling him. Maybe he should just accept that he was jealous and move on. Bob wasn't even mad at him for feeling like that, so why should he be mad at himself?

"I guess it is kind of annoying," Mikey said. Bob erupted in laughter then, which Mikey almost mistook for mockery before he understood the look on Bob's face. It was purely mischievous, in the playful way. Mikey chuckled too, though nowhere near as loud.

"Sorry, I don't- I don't know what was so funny, it just was," Bob explained.

"No worries." Mikey smiled. He felt a little better about being bitter because of Bob's new place behind him. Maybe Bob could even convince whoever it was who was in charge of the tournament to not have them play each other. But Mikey wasn't about to ask him to do that, not right after Bob realized he was jealous. 

All in all, it went worlds better than Mikey ever expected. And hey, he was now in fourth place in the tournament. That was definitely an advantage. He only started playing a few months ago. If only he could tell Lindsey how well he was doing.

-

Mikey returned to his tent after drills, wanting to lie down before his next drills started in half an hour. As the date of his departure neared, the drills became even more and more demanding. Mikey was doing okay at handling it, but he needed more and more rest. So it was a pretty big surprise to find Bob in his tent, seeing as they never hung out there and Bob was supposedly also doing his drills. And it was an even bigger surprise to find him reading through Mikey's notes.

"What are you doing?" Mikey asked in a shaky voice. Had Bob already read that part? Did he know what Mikey had written about Pete? He held his breath as Bob slowly looked up from the paper he was holding, his eye twitching.

"Didn't take you for a homosexual, Michael."

Mikey's eyes flew wide. A weight of a hundred pounds felt like it was on his chest. He didn't say anything in response.

"I could get you discharged. Just by showing these papers to an officer," Bob continued. "You would be gone from here. Sent back to where you came from. And then, your life afterwards would be a living hell. No one is going to employ any man with a blue discharge. What would your family think? You would never be able to be the same again. Proof of your deviance is right here, and I'm so tempted to turn it in."

"I'll give you anything," Mikey said. "Bob, you have no idea how much I need to stay in here." If he was issued a discharge, he would be asked to leave the country, and then they would look for records of him existing in England and never find any, and then Mikey would be arrested, probably, for not legally existing anywhere. Or maybe he would be forced to join Britain's military, something he could never imagine himself going through again. In any case, it would make it so much harder for Pete to find him. 

"I'm not going to turn it in, Michael," Bob told him. Mikey still didn't feel relieved at all. He started wondering what the 'but' was going to be, what he needed to do to keep Bob quiet. "Even though I find it repulsive, your thoughts about this Pete guy." Mikey's gut twisted in disgust. How could he say that to another human being, that his love was repulsive? 

"Stop calling me Michael. It's weird," Mikey chose to say instead of slipping up and saying something stupid that would get him in more trouble. 

"But only your friends call you Mikey. I'm not your friend anymore, not after this. In fact, if you talk to me again and try to infect me with whatever parasite you've got in your brain to make you think of other men like that," Bob spat. 

Mikey was getting really offended now. "I thought you'd be a bit more open minded, you know, you won't accept other men's sexist bullshit. I thought you were a good man."

"I thought so of you, too. But I guess it was too much to ask for, that you- you don't give in to these sick perversions. Doesn't matter now though," Bob said. "Oh, and when we play each other next week? I expect to win, so if there was a way for you to make that happen for me, maybe your secret would be a little more safe." With that, Bob got up and walked out of the tent, leaving Mikey wide-mouthed on the floor, clutching his letter. A minute passed, then two, Mikey switching from staring at where Bob left and back to the letter. He finally let out a huge sigh, tears welling up in his eyes. He had been so careless, leaving his letter in the open like that. Thinking that Bob would be fine with it. It was 1943. He could be discharged from the military just for being gay. Bob was right, his life would absolutely be ruined. He really should have been more careful.

But it was too late. Bob had already found out, and even though he said he would keep quiet, Mikey was aware that if he so much as said anything about Bob he didn't like, Bob would have alerted an officer so fast Mikey wouldn't be able to finish his breath before he was kicked out. 

Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. But Mikey had already lost everything once, he was so stupid to put himself in a situation where he could lose it all again. He teared up, thinking about what could have happened. He would probably never see Gerard again, or any alternate version of him. how would he even function without Gerard? He didn't work alone, nothing made sense when Gerard wasn't there to explain it. 

As if he was summoned by Mikey's thoughts alone, in the next second, Gerard was crawling through the door of their tent, brows furrowed and looking intensely for something. His gaze met Mikey's, and his face softened as he realized he was crying. 

"What," Gerard started, getting close to Mikey, cradling Mikey's face in his hand and wiping away a tear rolling down his cheek with his thumb, which annoyed Mikey slightly. Smudged tears felt bad on his skin, he much preferred it when they rolled down easily. "What happened?" Gerard asked softly. Mikey didn't answer him. He didn't feel like talking about it. Gerard sighed. "It's my fault," he said after a second of silence. "I mentioned something about your diary to Bob and he kept asking me these questions about it. I tried to give neutral answers but eventually he must have figured out that it has incriminating information. I'm so sorry, Mikey."

"Not your fault," Mikey said, even though it kid of was. He wasn't mad at Gerard, though. "You weren't the one who made him look for it. Wasn't anything you could do about it."

"I know, but I feel horrible."

Mikey sighed. "Bob's the one who threatened to report me to the officers for homosexuality," He said. "He's the one who should feel bad, God damn it."

"He's a disgusting excuse for a human being. You were his friend. And he did this all for a meaningless chess competition."

Mikey looked over at Gerard. "That's why?"

"Well, I kind of assumed. That's why he was so interested in your diary, I think, so he could make sure he won the chess competition. Maybe he was hoping to find your chess secrets in there," Gerard joked, but didn't smile. Mikey appreciated that. He could handle Gerard being not completely serious as long as he was considerate of how Mikey felt.

"God, how heartless do you have to be to do that?" Mikey exclaimed. "I can't believe we ever trusted him."

Gerard shrugged. "Bad people will make themselves seem like good people so they can manipulate you more easily. It's not our fault," he said. 

"I know," Mikey said. He took a deep breath, wiping away any tear residue on his face. Then he spoke again. "Remember a couple days ago? When he stood up to that dickhead who was saying that women were ruining the military or whatever? I thought that he was going to be nice after that. I was thinking about telling him. I knew it was stupid, because I can get in a ton of trouble for telling him, but a part of me thought it would be okay. I mean, if he was so passionate about equality when it came to women, I assumed he would be supportive if I told him."

Gerard rubbed Mikey's back. "Maybe one day he'll come around and realize how incredibly wrong he was," he said. "But he doesn't deserve your forgiveness. Bob Bryar is a garbage human being and he's even more garbage for making us think he wasn't."

Mikey's lips twitched upwards when Gerard put it that way. He liked the word choice. There was nothing wrong with the both of them for believing Bob, he was the one who was at fault for making them believe him. Mikey knew not to blame himself, but it was like his brain couldn't not do it. 

"Yeah," Mikey whispered. "You're right." He looked up at Gerard, catching his gaze. Seeing Gerard's face felt like a soft blanket being wrapped around him. He could always trust Gerard. Gerard was always there for him. Gerard was his brother. "I really appreciate you, you know. You make all of this a hell of a lot more liveable."

Gerard smiled softly, squeezing Mikey's shoulder with the arm wrapped around his back. "I feel the same way about you. We're together till the end, right?"

"Yeah," Mikey agreed. "Till the end."


	21. Chapter 21

Mikey and Gerard took the months leading up to their departure as easily as possible. They figured they had had enough drama for a lifetime. Fortunately, they had each other for when the training got too torturous. They were being trained to actually kill other humans now, being stripped away of their compassion towards their enemy.

It was certainly daunting, how in a couple of months they would be standing on actual battlefields holding actual guns that were meant to kill the most people possible. Mikey was afraid Gerard wouldn't be able to take it, but he seemed to be holding up relatively well, though Mikey had doubts that would continue when it wasn't just training anymore.

Mikey himself found the exercises they were meant to do pretty horrifying, and he had begun to worry that he was going to be a different person when Pete saw him again. What if he got so fucked up by being a soldier that Pete didn't like him anymore?

That didn't matter, though. He needed to focus on training and maintaining his sanity, not Pete's hypothetical opinion of him. And yet his mind kept drifting to what it would be like when Pete found him. It was one of the only good things he had left to think about.

In the weeks before, training got rougher and rougher. They were polishing up on strategy and finishing techniques. They were reminded several times that a lot of them were expected to not return home, and those who die may be one of their friends or even them. Mikey mainly zoned out during those. There was only one person he cared about compared to others who had a dozen friends. The chance of the only person who mattered to him getting killed were extremely slim. And he could deal with that problem when it arose.

"I wonder if felt like this to Frank when he was about to leave," Gerard said one night, about a week before they were set to leave. For once, the air was warm. That was both an advantage and a disadvantage, because even though sleeping was much more comfortable when they weren't shivering, drills were a lot more exhausting and opportunities to take showers were few and far between. Though Mikey and Gerard weren't all that bothered by each other's smell. They were brothers, after all. Or maybe just some weird version of brothers. Whatever they were, they were used to the smell of each other's sweat. 

"What does it feel like?" Mikey asked. They didn't really talk about how they were feeling. They usually didn't need to. Gerard wore his heart on his sleeve most of the time, at least to Mikey. And Mikey - okay, maybe he kept a lot to himself, but Gerard could at least guess what was going on with him. 

"I don't know. It feels like we're going to be sent to what could be our deaths in five days." Five days already? Not that Mikey would wish the training to go on any longer, it was truly brutal. But he didn't ever think about it in terms of numbers like that.

"Frank had you to think about," Mikey answered. "He spent as much of his time as he could afford to spend with you." There was a pause. "I hope he's doing well."

Gerard chuckled in the dark. "I miss him terribly. I can't believe he's only been gone for, what, six months? I hope he hasn't found anybody else."

"He would never. Gerard, I have never ever met anybody like you." As he said it, he registered how much of a lie that was. But his Gerard back home didn't count. That was the same person. "You're too special. I saw the way he looked at you. He could never love anybody as much as you."

"Thank you, Mikey," Gerard replied softly. "I- thank you so much. I think the same of you. I could never in a million years find a friend like you. "

"Hey, we're together till the end, you know that, right? Frank, too. Once we get through this, if he's still out there, he'll find us, and all three of us, we'll get together fine. Just like we promised."

-

The day they left felt like a relief in so many ways, and yet a doomsday in so many others. Training was over. There wasn't going to be any more drills where they had to walk for miles with what felt like tonnes of rocks in their backpacks digging into their backs in the hot summer. But after this, they were going to be out on the battlefield, with threats of death everywhere they looked. And there was no telling how the work they would be doing out there would compare to their drills. Some said it would be easier, some said it would be harder.

At least they would be actual soldiers. Mikey had grown tired of waiting to do something. As he got himself dressed, he wondered if Lindsey would be thinking of him at all that day. It was monumental to Mikey, and yet even though she was the one who sent him there, even though he was only doing this for her (and maybe a little for Gerard), did she even think about him anymore? 

He hoped she did. He thought back to what Gerard told him, about being unforgettable and an amazing friend. He hoped Lindsey felt the same way. He felt that way about her. Maybe she guessed that he would have left around this time of the year, too. Maybe she was sitting at her kitchen table, sipping her coffee, wondering if Mikey was doing well. Wondering if he was thinking about her, too. Maybe she had the anniversary of when he left marked on the calendar, just as an estimate of when he left.

Mikey stepped outside the tent. Gerard was already in the dining hall, Mikey assumed. The sun hadn't risen yet, and it wouldn't for another hour or so. Mikey walked in silence to the dining hall for the last time. He admired the trees and bushes that decorated the path there. The trees were just beginning to grow leaved again. It made everything look so much more alive, Mikey thought. It wasn't that the training camp was particularly beautiful in any way, but the little redeeming qualities it had, he wanted to remember.

He found Gerard already sitting at a table in the dining hall. Gerard looked up for a second and met Mikey's gaze. He gave him a slight wave. He looked incredibly tired. Mikey wondered if he felt as bad as he looked. Mikey wasn't bothered that much by the early wake-up, but he was also not somebody who relied that much on sleep. Gerard, however, was way more of an energetic person, so maybe he needed more sleep to keep up. Or maybe he stayed up even later last night thinking about what would happen the next day. 

When Mikey sat down at the table with his tray, Gerard perked up. "I woke up about two hours ago, you know. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get to sleep. So I decided to take a walk and not disturb you, but then I stepped on a caterpillar and yelled and woke up someone in their tent, so he got mad at me and by then I knew the dining hall was open and so I just came in here."

"You've been here for what, an hour, and you haven't eaten anything?" Mikey said, taking a bite of stale toast. It tasted weird and bitter and might make him sick, but he needed what little nutrition it was going to give him. And plus, they wouldn't serve spoiled food to soldiers who were going to be on a packed boat for the next few weeks.

"I'm not hungry," Gerard mumbled.

"You have to eat something, Gee," Mikey chastised him. "This is probably the best food you're going to get for the next few years of your life. And plus, you're going to need your digestive system working well. Who knows what kind of disease or shortage of food it's going to have to get through. And with all the stress, you're going to need the calories. So eat up."

Gerard groaned but picked up his toast to inspect it. "This is kind of the worst, you know."

"The food's only going to get worse out in Europe. You know that."

"No. I mean this whole situation. War."

Mikey sighed. "Yeah. But hey. At least we have each other, right?"

Gerard's eyes glistened. "Wish it were under different circumstances. Wish we were just coworkers in an office somewhere," he said. "Wish the Jews weren't getting murdered."

Mikey laughed. "Yeah. I wish that, too."

-

Mikey absolutely hated boats.

He had never really been on one before then - aquatic travel wasn't really a big thing where he was from, it wasn't necessary when the monorail could take you anywhere you wanted to go, even above water. God, did Mikey wish they had built the monorail system at least 200 years earlier - boats were nauseating and loud and this one in particular kept him in close quarters with men who hadn't showered in what smelled like weeks. 

He lived through it, though. Not that he had any choice in the matter. But he figured that he couldn't complain that much - it wasn't as if he was living in luxury before, he dealt with it.

But that didn't mean that Mikey didn't almost cry when he heard that they were going to be on land soon. He couldn't wait to feel the solid ground underneath his feet. Other soldiers kept telling him that he would get his "sea legs" once the boat had been sailing for a few days, but that never seemed to have happened. Mikey was still tripping whenever the boat shifted and he kept a habit of throwing up a few times a week. 

At least Gerard seemed to be adapting well. They didn't see each other as often as before, since Mikey's sleeping quarters were separated from his, but whenever they had free time - which was way more than they did at training camp, there wasn't much work to do on the boat except cooking and cleaning and being lectured by commanders which only took about half the day - they would hang out together. Sometimes, they just sat around and read books, pointing out funny or otherwise remarkable passages, but a good amount of the time was spent chatting. Ocassionally, somebody would stop by and try to join their conversation, but Gerard and Mikey made it clear that they weren't interested. 

They first arrived near Brest, in France. They were handed their packs after being rounded up and given a speech about everything in them and told several times not to lose anything. Then, they boarded a train to Brest, which luckily was quick and short unlike the train to the training camp. God, that felt like ages ago to Mikey. He felt somewhat nostalgic for that time. Back then, he didn't even know Gerard was there. He could barely believe the bravery he had, going into that situation without knowing that he would have somebody to count on for the next 4 or 5 years. 

They were going to be taking somewhat of a pit stop in Brest, which they were told would happen once in a blue moon, maybe three times a year. They were told to have fun and enjoy themselves. Mikey could definitely get behind that. If there was absolutely nothing to look forward to while serving their duty, soldiers would easily be so much more depressed than they already were. One officer suggested a bar nearby the train station, which Mikey and Gerard agreed would be a great idea.

"I don't like to drink much," Gerard told him as they walked. Mikey tried not to trip as he admired the architecture of the buildings. Everything felt so much more real now than when he visited Europe for work. "Still, I think we'll have fun tonight. Forget about what we're about to do."

Mikey nodded, still distracted by the sights. He almost missed the bar when they arrived, he was so caught up in the buildings. The sun was just setting, and orange light illuminated the street. It made everything look calm. Mikey doubted he would ever get a chance in the next few years to feel the same way. He stopped in front of the bar and took a deep breath through his nose, letting it out through his mouth. He didn't realize his eyes were closed till he had to open them to look at Gerard, who had the same look of satisfaction on his face. 

"Come on," Mikey said, "let's go."

They stepped inside. There weren't many people in there, maybe a dozen including them. The bar looked like it could hold at least five times more, though. It probably had to do with the time of day that it was: most people were still working at that hour. Still, the sunlight streaking through the long windows made for a really gorgeous scene. Everything seemed so tranquil - the bartender polishing glasses calmly, the men and women chatting quietly at the tables - the only thing it was missing was a band, though Mikey supposed there wasn't many of those around anymore.

"Wow," Gerard breathed, almost in a whisper, as if he could ruin the atmosphere by being any louder. "Weird to believe that places like this exist when there's so much tragedy going on outside." Mikey nodded in agreement. The bartender looked up at them then.

"Oh," he said, voice dull and gravely. his French accent was almost undetectable. Maybe english was his first language. Or maybe he had served so many americans that it had almost completely faded. "They only usually send the soldiers once every two months or so." Gerard and Mikey looked at each other. The bartender must've interpreted it as something other than confusion and curiosity, and quickly tried to correct himself. "I welcome your presence, obviously, thank you endlessly for your service, gentlemen-"

"No, it's fine," Mikey dismissed him. "It's just- how long has it been since the last time they brought soldiers here?" It felt weird, calling themselves soldiers, but Mikey supposed you didn't need to have fought in a real battle in order to have the strength and resilience of a soldier. Plus, the bartender was probably just calling them soldiers to appeal to their sense of authority.

"Oh, maybe five weeks ago," the bartender said. He seemed more dismissive of it than he was at first. Maybe he was realizing that he shouldn't have brought it up. "Can I get you something to drink? You look like you could use some whiskey."

"None for me, thank you," Gerard said. "Mikey?"

"Sure, I'll have a whiskey," Mikey said. The bartender winked at him and poured him a glass of whiskey. Mikey tried to hide the shock on his face. There was no way he could drink that entire glass, at least not in the same hour. He wondered why the bartender would have poured him an entire glass. Maybe because of the war, people were compelled to drink more. Mikey just couldn't imagine doing that to his liver. Although, when was the last time he had a real drink? It must have been when he went out with Gerard and Pete the night he left 2034. It felt like an entirely different lifetime. 

They took a seat near a window. With the sun starting to set, some of the people in the bar were getting ready to leave. Mikey couldn't even imagine going to a bar that early, let alone leaving before anything fun even got to happen. But it was wartime, and people were losing jobs and falling into depression and so maybe daytime drinking was a little more socially acceptable.

Gerard and Mikey spent about an hour, sitting, watching the sun set, and talking. More and more people came into the bar, mostly men, but a few women would come in as well. They recognized some soldiers from their company, even some in their platoon. They ignored them, choosing instead to spend their last few moments of freedom from the horrors they were about to face with each other. 

By the time the sun was set, all of the tables in the bar were full. There were people everywhere, speaking to each other in French. Everything sounded so much more sophisticated in French, Mikey observed. Or, at least, in the French that was common in 1943. It likely didn't sound the same anymore. 

Just as Mikey was almost done his glass of whiskey, a woman with brown hair tied back and a blue dress unlike the ones the women in the rest of the bar were wearing came over and said something to them in French. Gerard stuttered out something like "Je non... understand" while gesturing with his hands. "Je English".

The woman laughed. "Sorry, I did not realize you were.. um, _soldats_ ," she spoke in a heavy French accent. "I ask if you would let me sit here."

Gerard looked at Mikey with surprise and curiosity. Mikey took another sip of his whiskey and tried not to wince as he said "Sure, why not." 

She pulled out one of the chairs at the table they were sitting at and sat down, smoothing out her dress. "So, what are you men doing here?" 

"We're taking sort of a break before we head out to battle tomorrow," Gerard said. "I'm Gerard and this is Michael, by the way."

The woman giggled. " _Ici_ , you are Gérard et Michel. But I am Florence," she replied, pronouncing it 'flaur-awnce'.

"Florence," Gerard said, pronouncing it 'floor-ince'. "I like that."

Then Florence tried to correct his pronunciation and Gerard was able to get it almost right, but he was distracted by how she was able to roll the R in the back of her throat. Mikey witnessed Gerard struggling to replicate the sound with a grin on his face. Florence laughed so hard she had to wipe tears away from the corners of her eye. 

"I think it's nice," Florence said once she was able to compose herself enough to speak, "That even though we are different, we are still the same."

Mikey nodded. He definitely felt that tonight. He was able to form a connection with this woman from an entirely different continent, 200 years in the past. "Yeah, it's like, that whole thing with Gerard and the R's, that's a huge difference between you and us. And then we all thought it was funny that he couldn't do it."

Florence nodded. "I cannot imagine what it is like, to be like you," she gestured to their uniforms. "But I kind of have that same thing happening in my life, _en ce moment_. My sister, she is sick, and - and she will die soon. And I know that. I know the feeling of knowing that your life is about to change and not being able to stop it. And I know that you want to escape that, to live one last night like normal." She took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. "My sister, she has baby. She is not even three years old. And I will have to take care of her. I have never had children. I don't want to be a bad new mother for her child."

Gerard gave her a sympathetic look. "It's okay. It's going to turn out fine, in the end. And even if it doesn't, your sister will know you did your best," he said as Florence wiped away her tears. 

"D'accord," she said finally. "You are right."

Mikey and Gerard left the bar later that night when the leader came by and told everybody in the company to get back to the train to gather the rest of their supplies and start marching toward wherever their first battle would be. Somehow, it felt like after that night, they were different people. If they weren't already finished their military training, their time with Florence toughened them up enough for anything the next part of their lives could bring them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhh hi. this is extremely late. its been two entire fucking months since the last update. im so sorry, i tried my best to get this done without absolutely hating it. there's not much left of this fic, i promise. there won't be more than twenty five chapters, i can guarantee you that. the next few chapters are what gave me the whole idea to write this in the first place, so hopefully i actually get them done. thank you so much for your patience, if youre reading this. also, thanks for reading it in the first place! i probably should have mentioned that before. sorry it's lame.


	22. Chapter 22

They walked all night that night, until the sun was starting to show and their muscles ached like they had never ached before. They could hardly imagine what it would have been like had they not received their training. The walls of what Gerard said was the fortress loomed over them as they got closer and closer, almost daring them to step inside and face the horrors of what was happening on the other side of the walls. Mikey knew that the fortress of Brest did not last the Second French Revolution, but he had only briefly heard of the actual fortress itself. Gerard and the others seemed to have a vague idea of what it was like, as he inferred from what he could catch of the whispers spoken between deep, laboured breaths.

When they finally arrived at a field, well-hidden by a hill in front, the commander instructed them to put down their equipment and sit. As soon as they heard that they were finally getting some rest, many men cheered and began to relax. 

"Look alive, men!" the commander shouted. They immediately stilled. The commander cleared his throat. "Brest fortress, as you know, is currently under German control." His voice was soft suddenly, speaking as though he was telling them a very important secret. In a way, he was. "Tomorrow, as soon as you are fit to do so, we are invading the fortress. We have marines arriving very shortly. The gunfire will be our cue to invade the fortress from our side."

"Sir!" Somebody exclaimed, from behind Mikey. He turned his head to see who it was: somebody he recognized as one of the officers' favourites. That would explain why he was brave enough to speak before being spoken to. "Surely being out here, where any patrolling Germans could see us, is unwise, sir."

The commander shook his head. "For one night, it's a chance we have to take. If this is going to be successful, you need to rest. The marines don't arrive until tomorrow, and we need to be ready. Our timing is the best we can do right now." He addressed the whole commandment as he spoke. "Sleep, men. You'll need it." 

A quiet "Sir, yes, sir" came from the men on the ground. Mikey, with heavy-lidded eyes, opened his sack and got out the blanket in there. He spread out the small piece of fabric over himself as he laid down on the ground. It was uncomfortable, yes, but at the time, he couldn't bring himself to care. In the last second before his eyes shut themselves, he caught Gerard's gaze from his left side. Gerard blinked lazily at him, as if he wanted to tell him something but couldn't stay awake for long enough to form the words. Mikey just nodded at him. Whatever it was, it didn't matter. What mattered is that there, laying on the ground in the open, where they could be found and shot by anyone who decided to leave the fortress, they had each other.

\- 

When Mikey woke, it was to the sound of guns firing. He sat up, panicking and wanting to know if the other soldiers were safe. He relaxed when he realized that he was hearing them going off in the distance, and that they were more powerful than regular single-man rifles. All around him, soldiers were waking each other up in a hurry, putting on and testing their equipment, or talking to the Commander. 

Mikey looked around for Gerard and found him, still asleep, on the ground to his left. Ignoring the other sleeping men closer to him, Mikey rushed over to wake Gerard.

"Come on, Gee, we don't have time!" He said as he shook him. Finally, Gerard opened his eyes and looked at Mikey. As if his ears just started working, his expression annoyed changed to one of panic as he heard the guns. 

"Oh, shit," he exclaimed as he got up. "What's going on?"

"I don't know, I'm assuming the marines have arrived, but I thought we would be awake and ready when they got here," Mikey replied honestly.

"Wake up the soldiers around you," the commander instructed the army. "Get ready to invade the fortress. The marines were spotted earlier than we anticipated and the Germans are well prepared."

"So they know we're here?" Gerard gulped next to Mikey, as if he didn't know he was saying it out loud to his commander.

"Well, not us, or we'd be dead on this soil right now. Hopefully they won't be expecting an invasion from our side this late."

"What time is it, even?" Somebody else asked, their voice cracking in the middle.

"Ten in the morning. We've only had four or five hours of sleep. It'll have to do. Now, go!"

Gerard and Mikey hastily nudged some of the sleeping soldiers around them with their boots while they made their way to their packs. Mikey got his helmet, rifle, and ammunition from his pack and put them on their respective places on his uniform. He looked at Gerard as he did the same. 

"So this is it, huh? It's really happening," he said. It all felt too real. This was where his fucked-up mess of a life had led him, about to invade a fortress in Brest, France, during World War 2.

"Yeah," Gerard said, wiping sweat from his forehead before he put his helmet on. "First of many operations. Hopefully the rest won't be in the broad daylight or sweltering heat."

Mikey hadn't noticed the temperature, but when Gerard mentioned it, he realized he was sweating a bit. He didn't usually sweat a lot. He nudged the last soldier around them who still hadn't woken up. "Hey, the marines got here early. We have to go now," he told the soldier, figuring he should probably tell them men why they were being woken up. 

Eventually, everybody woke up, either by the sound of the battle happening at the front of the fortress or by their fellow men. The commander stopped to instruct them before sending them out.

"Once we reach the other side of this hill, they can see us," he said. "You must go in, as fast as you can. Shoot anyone not wearing an Ally uniform. Our goal is to completely raid the fortress, from the ground up, eventually getting to the men at the top firing at our ships. If any of our men get wounded, bring them to safety. The nurses will find them and heal them. Do I make myself clear?"

"Sir, yes, sir!" Came the cry of the soldiers, saluting. 

"Stay quiet. We have the advantage of the surprise on our side but they will know we're here eventually. We need to keep that moment as far in the future as possible, do you understand?"

"Sir, yes, sir!" They repeated. Mikey felt his mouth go dry as he shouted the words. He felt like a prop, just a toy for these people to use to achieve their goal, and it wasn't a bad feeling. It was just shocking.

"Good. I'll send you in two groups. You men," he gestured to the half of the soldiers closest to him, "Run from this side of the hill, and you," he gestures to the other half, the side Miokey and Gerard were on, "Enter from your side. It will make us seem like we are larger in numbers than we are. At first, run with your guns loaded but not drawn. You won't be able to shoot anything from here anyways, and you need to run as fast as possible. Stay in groups. I don't have the time to split you into formal groups, so just go. Now!"

As soon as he gave the command, the collective of soldiers started moving. It was actually quite mesmerizing, and Mikey would have stood and watched if he wasn't already running. It wasn't until after he was in front of the hill shielding him from view that he looked to see where Gerard was. Realistically, he shouldn't be checking to make sure he stayed with Gerard, but he was the only one he trusted enough to keep by his side. Gerard was about ten feet behind him, and when they made eye contact, he sped up his running to catch up to Mikey. They were almost at the back of the group of soldiers, which meant that they had the most protection from any firing but were going to be the last to enter the fortress, and in that moment, they would be exposed to the fire. 

They still hadn't been shot at when they reached about a third of the way across the field. Ideally, they would stay unnoticed until they entered the fortress and split up and there wouldn't be any German soldiers waiting for them when they entered, but realistically, they were such a large group and were moving so tightly that they would likely be found before then.

True enough, just as the first solders were entering the fortress and drawing their rifles, the first shot was sent to the troops making their way across. It was only aimed at the other group, and didn't hit anybody. However, Mikey knew better than to think it was an accident or that the person firing just had bad aim, because after that single bullet, ten more from at least half a dozen more weapons were shot, targeting both groups. Fear started to creep its way into Mikey's mind, but he only let it stay in order for the added adrenaline make him run faster. They, too, were approaching the fortress, and any Germans who were sent to guard the entrance would have been taken care of by the first soldiers in. 

After at least twenty more shots were fired, Mikey and Gerard reached the fortress. Sure enough, when they got inside the walls, there were no German soldiers in sight. Most of the solders coming in were running to either side, into the halls, and the sound of gunshots could be heard echoing from everywhere. In front of them, there was an archway into the centre of the fortress, but that space was completely empty. Gerard and Mikey stepped out of the way so that soldiers could still get into the slight safety of the walls and were about to turn to the right when Mikey noticed somebody stepping to the centre. Mikey quickly ran to stop him. 

"You can't go there! It's completely open, the snipers are all up there right now. They'll be waiting for you to step through," he warned them.

"If we run, we can make it to the other side and start taking the fortress from another direction," the soldier argued.

"At least half of you won't live to make it there. At least wait till everybody's inside and most of the snipers have left their posts," Mikey said, then turned away and finally going into the hall. Hopefully that would convince them, but he didn't have time to spare on arguing with them. He would find out if they went through with their stupid plan later, but he had work to do. Gerard stood in admiration of Mikey's strategic advice, then smiled and followed him. if he had Mikey on his side, this was probably going to be way easier than he thought.

They ran down the corridor of the fortress. A promising amount of it had been cleared already, though the people who were in the halls and rooms at that time probably didn't know what was happening. They continued down and onward, following the soldiers in front of them. When they got close to where they were hearing the gunshots, they drew their guns. They were at the back of a pack that probably outnumbered the Germans in that area, but it was still a good idea to be safe, especially if they were splitting off at some point. The people in front cleared some of the Germans out of the way, but they weren't able to be stealthy and were getting shot every once in a while. Already, some soldiers were being hauled off into empty rooms for the nurses to find later. 

They were too big of a group, Mikey realized. It was impossible to keep fifty men completely silent and organized. The next time Mikey saw a chance to split off into a different part of the fortress, he took it, urging some of the others to follow him. Now, he and Gerard were at the front of the group, and they walked slowly, guns drawn and fingers around their triggers. There was nobody in the hallways, but when Mikey saw the door to a room and looked inside, he could see at least two dozen German soldiers in there. They seemed to be unarmed. He turned around and looked at the group behind him. He lifted up three fingers and counted down. Gerard took his place at the very front of the door and opened it when Mikey's last finger went down. 

As many solders as possible entered the room, weapons drawn. It looked like it was supposed to be the barracks. The soldiers inside immediately put their hands up and started speaking in German, none of which Gerard or Mikey could understand. Gerard almost felt sorry for targeting these unarmed men before his eyes fell on the red flag, adorned with a swastika, painted on the wall. He pulled the trigger and watched as the bullet hit man and the crimson spread across his uniform, his first military kill. He felt no remorse. 

-

Pete was walking home from his 3 AM grocery run when he got the call. He almost didn't pick up, but when he saw that it was from Flasch, he shoved all his bags into one arm and used the other to project the responder's face into the air. 

He hadn't been in contact with any of the folks from Flasch for months. The company was slowly going into bankruptcy and they didn't need him anymore. Pete had been writing poetry for a living, which didn't pay much at all, though, combined with Gerard's work, they were able to get along okay. 

"Hello Peter, we have some news we think you'd like to hear," the man said, smiling at him. Pete tried not to let himself get too hopeful just yet, remaining himself he didn't know what it was yet.

Though, what other good news could they have if it didn't have to do with Mikey and his location?

"Yeah?" Pete said. After he spoke, he stopped walking and put his groceries down. He didn't want to miss this.

"We believe that we may have located Michael Way," the responder said. "There's no certainty over whether he'll actually be there or even if he's alive, but this is our most promising cue yet."

Pete's eyes went wide. Then he laughed giddily, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding in. "Man. Are you serious?" He exclaimed. He couldn't believe it. He had almost given up any amount of hope he had that they would find Mikey, but it was such a relief that it turned out to be worth everything, after all.

"Yes, we're serious. If you could come in tomorrow so we could explain everything and discuss our course of action, along with Gerard Way, that would be helpful. You will likely be involved in retrieving him if he's really there, if you would like that."

"Yes," Pete said. "God, of course yes, I wouldn't let anybody else do it. God." Pete couldn't stop himself from smiling. He would pinch himself to see if he wasn't dreaming if that wouldn't be totally weird to do while on call with a Flasch responder. 

"Thank you, Peter," the responder said. "Would you like to tell Gerard yourself or should we give him the call?"

"God, no, thank you," Pete replied. He contemplated the options, telling Gerard or letting them do it. It would be amazing to be the one who brought the absolute bliss to Gerard's face, but he probably wouldn't believe him if he did it. It was probably more fair to let him get the news from a reliable source. Plus, it was 3 AM, and Gerard might not be awake. "You should probably give him the call, since he won't believe me if I'm the one to tell him. But can you do it when I'm there? I have a feeling he'll want to talk with me about it. Or at least give me a hug." Gerard was a big fan of hugs. 

"Absolutely. In fact, Gerard Way isn't even awake right now, so we'll give him a call in the morning to wake him up and then you both can come to the headquarters and have a meeting with the coordinators."

"Great! Thank you so much!" Pete said. He was genuinely the happiest he had ever been in months. He couldn't wait to see how Gerard would react. Moreso, he couldn't wait to see Mikey. Finally, after months of trying to no avail, there was hope.

Pete picked up his bags and skipped the rest of the way home, not caring who saw him. It wasn't every day that you find out that your best friend who you've had feelings for and who randomly disappeared might be finally coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey!! its been a while again!! i took like 2 other months just not touching this at all but like last week i got inspired and wrote like 800 words in one sitting which is p impressive for me!! i really enjoyed writing this chapter, its getting to the part that ive been thinking about writing since i started thinking about this fic like 2 summers ago, and im so excited to finally bring it to life! im gonna make a note about the historical accuracy in the next chapter, which will hopefully come out soon, bc i did a lot of research trying to understand how what i want to happen could realistically happen and i wanna show off lol. anyways thanks so much for reading, commenting, & leaving kudos!!


	23. Chapter 23

Pete was absolutely, one hundred percent right.

Seeing the absolute glee on Gerard's face when he got the news was so undeniably worth the wait. His eyes glistened as he looked across the room to Pete, who was making coffee in the kitchen. A year ago, he would have assumed that Gerard wouldn't want coffee after waking up to the best call of his life, but now he knew Gerard like a brother. There was absolutely nothing in the world that would make Gerard somehow not want coffee. In his mind, the first sip of coffee for the day would be the perfect complement to the best morning of his life.

Gerard looked at Pete, his eyes glistening and the expression on his face unlike anything Pete had ever seen Gerard look like. "Is this real?" He asked. Pete flashed his grin and nodded. "You already knew? When did you find out? You weren't hiding this from me, were you?"

"Calm down, I only got the call last night when I was getting groceries," Pete said, though it was a bit redundant since he could barely contain his own glee. "I didn't want to wake you up so early in the night because we have to head down to Flasch as soon as we can to discuss shit. I swear, trying to sleep last night when I knew that we might have found him was, like, impossible."

"Jesus," Gerard said, running his hand through his hair. It was uncharacteristically soft, he had been showering way more often than he ever used to because it was the one thing that made him feel human again. "Mikey. My baby brother. He's out there."

Pete laughed, a light, earthy giggle. His eyes met Gerard's and Gerard started laughing, too. They stood there, laughing at each other, for what felt like forever.

Somehow, after all of that excitement, the two men managed to get themselves to the Flasch headquarters. The monorail ride was unbearably long. For Pete, the giddiness of the great news was starting to wear off and nervousness began to take its place. What if they didn't really know where he was, and they had just gotten their hopes up for nothing? What would he do then? What would Gerard do? Pete could maybe move on, but Gerard would be thrown into such deep sorrow and Pete didn't know if there was anything that could take him out of it.

He had to put any emotion aside when they sat down in the chairs of the conference room of the nearly empty building. Even if it was rarely used by anybody other than management, marketing and technology, there used to always be a few people Pete recognized and could chat with while he was waiting to be called for his meeting. Now, there was nobody familiar. This was likely one of the busier days they'd had recently, and still, there was maybe a maximum of thirty people in the entire building. Still, he didn't let the atmosphere get to him. This was business. And as much as he considered himself a laid-back person, not serious at all, he was surprised to find that he enjoyed being treated like his presence was necessary and important, that he was a valuable member of a team.

They were in the same room where they were discussing possibilities for where Mikey could be, just months ago. Brendon, the leader of the technology department, and Patrick, the leader of the Corrections department and Pete's ex-boss, were both at the table.

"Take a seat," Brendon told them when the secretary who led them to the room knocked on the doorframe. Gerard and Pete followed the instructions.

"It's been a while since we've seen each other, hasn't it?" Patrick greeted them, putting his hand out to shake theirs. "We hope you've been well. We're just going to get right into the case, if that's okay." He didn't wait for an answer before continuing, "Brendon and I have been working together for the past few months, trying to narrow down Michael's location, using the information you gave us. It occurred to us recently that maybe he didn't choose someplace by asking himself where he would want to go to. I mean, we believe he would have been pretty overwhelmed in this moment, so why wouldn't he have just chosen somehwere at random? We started guessing for where he could have easily just let his Communicator lead him. You know, like, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, a thousand years ago, even numbers like that."

"We noticed a faint disruption in the timeline when we looked at this exact location, two hundred years ago. Like, we're talking an influence of ten Ponds," Brendon interrupted, looking at Pete and Gerard for evidence of their understanding. Pete, of course, knew exactly what Brendon meant, it was basic time theory. Gerard, however, looked at Pete and Brendon in confusion.

"A Pond is the unit of measurement for one human life's worth of entropy. Basically, only ten people are really impacted by this disturbance, which is not a lot at all. Most of the jobs I was on had at least a hundred Ponds or more," Pete explained quietly to Gerard.

"And we're guessing that's Mikey? How aren't we sure?" Gerard asked.

"Well, after this all happened, we had our Travellers go through the timeline, trying to work out all of the remaining entropy, all the parts that Travelling fucked up that we didn't get around to fixing because they were so minor, just in case that somehow revealed the answer. It didn't, really, unless this works. The thing is, we can never fix the timeline completely. There's always going to be at least one human life that experiences weird things because of how we Travel. So maybe that's it. But the numbers are far too perfect for it not to be worth calling you guys and getting your hoped up. I mean, his exact location? Exactly two hundred years ago? Are you kidding? That's gotta be worth checking out," Brendon went on.

"So what do you need us for then? What are we going to do?" Pete asked.

"Well, we assumed you would like to be the one who goes and finds him," Patrick shrugged.

Pete's jaw dropped open. When there was absolutely no semblance of mockery on Patrick's face (like Patrick would ever do that), he cleared his throat. "Are you kidding? Of course, how- how could I say no to that?" He said.

"Well, there's a possibility that he's not there, and you need to be ready to cope with that," Gerard advised him.

"I don't care. If he's not there, I would want to see for myself either way," Pete said. "And if he's there, I want to be the one to give that motherfucker a hug first."

"You'll need to be briefed about the laws and everything first," Patrick said. "I know you know all of this already, but it's been a year since you've last Travelled. You need to get there, find him or not, and then bring him back. Immediately. No chit-chat. You can do all the catching up in the world once you're back here."

"And what happens after he's back? What happens to Flasch? And the timeline?" Pete asked.

Brendon sighed. "We don't know, really. If you haven't noticed, our fuck-up has been, like, world news. It'll take some serious marketing to get people to want to use our service again after this. The timeline can be easily fixed, we might even send you back to fix it since you'll be the one who has most recently Travelled. As for Mikey himself, it all depends on what state he's in when he gets back. Provided you don't make the same mistake he did, you'll be able to communicate with us. Keep us up to date with what's going on. And we'll try and let Gerard know what's up, but it won't be the priority. The priority is getting Mikey home, if he's there." He looked at them seriously.

Brendon was a fucking idiot, in Pete's personal experience. His entire attitude, the way he acted like he was the most qualified man in the world even though he rarely had a clue what he was talking about, pissed Pete off. But here, even though Brendon was acting like just as much of an asshole as usual, Pete couldn't help but listen to him. It was for Mikey, after all.

"Yeah, sure. Is that all? Can we get this going?" Pete said impatiently.

Patrick blinked. "Yeah, uh, sure. I'll go over the guidelines and everything with you and then you'll... be on your way to 1943," he said. He paused. "Or whatever."

-

By the time they had gone through the eastern wing on the fortress, Mikey and Gerard's group had shrunk to maybe ten men. Some had gotten injured, surely, but most of them had split off into their own group. The rest of the corridor was similar to the first room they emptied, unarmed men hiding in their barracks. They were easy to clear, only about two or so of them were needed, but once they heard the gunshots, some Germans would try and run from their rooms, so they needed a few men stationed in the hallway to keep them from escaping. Or worse, finding a weapon. There were enough armed fascists already in that fortress.

After maybe two hours of war, Mikey and Gerard's group met up with another of their army. They looked at each other in confusion. They were supposed to take the fortress all the way through, never going forward unless the area was cleared.

"Does this mean that the ground level is cleared?" Mikey yelled once they were close enough to hear him.

"Guess so. We haven't skipped anywhere," someone in the front row of their group replied.

"We have to be the first ones then. I don't hear any gunshots from overhead," Gerard said.

"Let's go, then," Mikey said, drawing his gun and going in the direction of the staircase he saw a while back.

"Wait!" Someone from the other group called out. Mikey turned back to face him, along with everybody else. "Cam we not just... just wait it out here? So that more men arrive and we have better chances!" He said, as if he was unsure of what he was even saying.

Mikey looked at his incredulously. "What? Are you kidding? No, we can do this, just us. We have most of the bodies down, although it might be harder upstairs. Our orders were to go forth. If you don't want to follow the orders, you are welcome to stay down here. But if you're willing to do what it takes to defend your country? To defend the world? You better come with me now."

There was a pregnant silence. Mikey found it unsettling. Maybe he was too harsh. Maybe they were unconvinced. He tried to make it seem like it didn't matter and turned towards the staircase. Whoever followed him would come, and whoever didn't wouldn't.

To Mikey's surprise, when he reached the base of the staircase and tried to turn around in a way that showed that he didn't care how many people were behind him, it seemed like every one of those men, regardless of their initial opinion, were right there, following him. He allowed himself to smirk slightly in celebration before reloading his rifle.

He was undeniably anxious about being the first man anybody upstairs would see, but the rest of the group would be right beside him. There may not have been enough of them, but if they waited too long, the Germans upstairs would come down and they would lose the opportunity to start the next part of the battle on their own terms. 

It would have been so much easier if they had time to organize before being forced to go in, Mikey thought, especially since they were such inexperienced soldiers. He was lucky he was good at seeing the strategy behind the battle, but it really wasn't his job to be doing this. Still, he didn't mind it, as long as he was doing the best he could to keep Gerard and any other soldier fighting with them safe. It made him feel like he was doing something for the time period and not just hitching a ride. 

He looked back at the men behind him one last time before holding up three fingers. They all looked as ready as they would ever be. Gerard's solemn expression caught the most of his attention. He gave Gerard a slight smile, letting him know that he was there for him. He made a mental note to let Gerard know later how much of an honour it was to fight alongside him. Finally, he lowered one of the three fingers. Some of the soldiers crouched down lower, making sure they were fully ready. He then lowered the second one. Nobody moved. "Slowly," he mouthed to them as the last finger went down and he stepped forward, climbing the rest of the way up the staircase. 

His first view of the hallway upstairs was that the section they were in was relatively empty. Likely, most of the Germans had either gone downstairs and were hopefully lying dead on the ground, or they were upstairs operating canons shooting the Ally ships. Mikey got himself further down the hallway, the rest of the men following him just as carefully as he was walking. 

Three men, running, with guns drawn, were coming down the hallway. Mikey couldn't see their uniform, but if they were on their side, they wouldn't be running in a fortress that currently didn't belong to them. Still, Mikey let them get close enough to accurately identify their uniforms - German, as he suspected - before he fired at them twice. One of his bullets hit one of them in the shoulder, causing them to drop their rifle and clutch their shoulder as the dark spot on their uniform grew. The other two stopped running and started firing at the group, but more shots were coming from Mikey's left and right and the two men were lying on the floor, motionless, after a while. 

"They know we're up here, now," Mikey said. He wasn't sure whose benefit it was for, but Gerard nodded as if he understood. Mikey really wasn't sure what was going to happen, if they were going to be ambushed or if it was just going to be small groups of soldiers trying to assess the damage or reinforce certain areas of the fortress. 

Nevertheless, they continued down the hallway, looking in every room for any sign of presence of German soldiers. There were less rooms than the barracks they had cleared downstairs, but these rooms looked like supply rooms. The shelves for the rifles were getting more and more empty in each room they passed. The hallways were suspiciously empty. It was almost unsettling, how the only sound they could hear was their own movement. Where were the other soldiers? Shouldn't they have come upstairs by now? Mikey started looking down every staircase for any presence, German or American. He knew they couldn't be the only ones left, so why was nobody showing up? 

He was staring down a flight of stairs, craning his neck to look behind him as it passed, when he saw movement out of his peripheral vision. He whipped his head back to look in front of him, where a room that he really should have been keeping an eye on was emptying out. Armed Germans were spilling out into the hallway, firing at their group. They shot back, taking the first few of them out, but there were just so many of them.

There was no way they could win. Mikey's instincts were telling him to flee, to get the fuck out of there, but orders were orders, so he stood his ground and shot his rifle at as many of them as he could, ignoring the men beside him collapsing on the ground. 

He was able to shoot down a few of the Germans before he needed to reload his rifle, at which point he backed up into the second row for protection, as he had been trained to do. He tried his best to steady his hands, to not let the sounds of gunfire and shouts of injured men distract him. He wouldn't get anything accomplished if he let himself freak out. He could do that later, if he survived. When he finished reloading, he looked up to inspect what had happened while he was busy. At least a quarter of his men were on the ground, and a dozen Germans from the other side were dead or injured. About an equal amount of soldiers were dead on each side, but there were at least a hundred more Germans than Americans. It was then that he noticed more American soldiers coming up the stairs. There were just enough to bring the amount of Americans closer to the amount of Germans, enough to make sure it would be a fair fight. Mikey sighed in relief as he moved back to the front and started firing again. 

As the new reinforcements started filling out the space behind Mikey's group and coming through the already established rows to even out the distribution, Mikey could see how the once confident German soldiers began to feel less certain that they would be able to defend the fortress. Meanwhile, Mikey's panic that was previously threatening to take over his thoughts began to dwindle. There was an actual chance that they would survive this.

They were taking the Germans down way quicker now, but they were also getting hit much more. It would be a close call, whoever won. Luckily, Mikey knew that there were more American soldiers than were in the hallway at that moment - or, at least, he hoped. He didn't expect that there were many more Germans in the fortress, besides those firing at the ships, and he hadn't heard gunfire from above in a while. Even if Mikey ended up getting injured and unable to continue, they had a good chance of overthrowing the German control of the fortress. 

Mikey just kept shooting after that, letting his training do all of the work, shooting as many men as he could. He forced himself not to check where Gerard was. If something had happened to him, he would definitely lose his focus. It was better to just not know. 

As the numbers of soldiers on each side started to go down, though, his curiosity got the best of him. He stepped back to reload his rifle, and as he did so, he knocked into Gerard, who was still standing and firing, but was bleeding from his leg. Judging by the amount of blood, a bullet had just narrowly hit him. He would be fine. Mikey breathed another sign of relief and went back to aim his gun and shoot.

There were only about twenty or so Germans left, and maybe slightly more Americans. Dead or injured bodies covered the floor. Mikey's heart rate sped up. He could suddenly hear his ears ringing from the excessive loud noises echoing in the hallway. This was it. 

The Germans were starting to realize it, too, that it was now or never, that they needed to win this by any means necessary. He could hear them shouting in German, but they were too far away for him to hear what. 

He figured out more or less what it was supposed to be, though, as the Germans started slowly advancing, guns still firing. Mikey was able to shoot down three of them in a row, but he realized that they were making a sacrifice. Mikey watched six of his own soldiers fall to the floor in exchange for the three he was able to shoot. They seemed to be each going for one soldier in particular now, like Mikey had been taught to when they played hoopball in his high school gym class. Mikey tried to protect himself, to shoot anyone who tried to go for himself or for Gerard, but he only shot twice before his hand was shot by the German approaching him with a snarl, and his gun was knocked out his hands and clattered to the ground. 

Mikey instantly moved to pick it up, but the German soldier kicked it out of the way as he approached. Mikey backed up quickly, his feet gliding against the floor gracefully until his back hit the wall. The German smirked, aiming his gun at him. Mikey would love nothing more than to shoot this motherfucker right between the eyes, but without his gun, there was nothing he could do but try his best to not get killed.

Right as the German was lifting his gun to aim, Mikey jabbed him in the stomach with his elbow. The soldier stepped back, doubling over instinctively, and Mikey made a move to run, but then the soldier stood up straight again and fired his gun.

Mikey felt his body collapse against the wall before he felt the pain, or the blood. It was as if he could feel his skin ans muscle reacting to the shock. Once he realized he had just been shot in the chest, he squeezed his eyes shut. There wasn't much pain, probably because of the same adrenaline in his body that was making his hands shake at his sides. He could feel the blood, though, he could feel it spreading through his uniform., warm and wet. His eyes flew open when he realized he needed to do something about that. He could see approximately where the entry hole was, a little bit above his right nipple. The blood had almost spread to his waistline already. He knew he had to stick his thumbs in the entry and exit holes, but the idea seemed utterly horrifying, and it would be so much easier to just lay there and wait for a medic. But when he looked up, needing to look at something that wasn't an absurd amount of blood to be outside of his body, he saw Gerard, shooting down the Germans, with a look of utter dedication on his face. 

What was Mikey even thinking? That he would just die there? Gerard would never do that, he would never just give up like that. He lifted his hands, inspecting his thumbs. He didn't know what he was really looking for, but it would be the last time he would see them without them having been literally inside a hole in his chest. Then, he looked down at the wound. The entry hole was easy to locate, and he rested his right thumb against it so that he could push both in at the same time. He couldn't feel it on his chest, and he didn't know if that was a good or bad thing. Then, he took his other thumb and reached behind his back to where he estimated the exit would be. He fumbled around for a bit before he found it. He took a deep breath, and as he was exhaled, he pushed them both in, squeezing his eyes shut in disgust. It didn't really feel like anything in chis chest, but he felt it in his thumbs and the psychology of knowing what was happening freaked him out. 

When he opened them again, he didn't know mow much time had passed, but there wasn't any more gunfire. His ears were ringing. He tried lift his head to look around, but he found that he couldn't move his head at all. He couldn't hear any movement from anywhere in the fortress. Their battle in the hallway had ended. 

He didn't know who won, but the feeling of utter peace washed over him. He stared up at the ceiling as everything started to go numb. This was it, he thought. He wasn't coming back. Still, he was proud of what he was able to get done in his short life. He loved his Gerard. He was always there for his brother. He got a job working in one of the coolest industries ever to exist. And now, he was a soldier, dying in battle in 1943. 

There was so much left to do, Mikey thought, but clearly it couldn't be done by him. He could do nothing but accept it as the world faded out and every stiff muscle in his body relaxed and every worry in his mind coalesced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISE THERES A HAPPY ENDING!!!
> 
> sorry this took so long lmao i really loved writing it but i just never had time to do it but now it's here!!! 
> 
> also sorry if it was gross lmao whoops i think i put a warning for gore in the tags already so it should be fine?? idk??


	24. Chapter 24

When Pete opened his eyes the first time since he was two hundred years in the future, he wasn't expecting to see what he did.

The fact that he was in a medic's setup wasn't what shocked him, no, it was more the fact that, weeping in the corner of the room in the year 1943, was his best friend Gerard Way.

A million thoughts were running through his head all at once. Did Gerard accidentally get Travelled there with him? Why was he crying? Should he console him? What the fuck was happening?

In all of his confusion and in true Pete fashion, he accidentally spoke the last question out loud. Gerard immediately looked up at him and wiped the tears away from his eyes.

"Who are you?" He said. His voice sounded different than Gerard's. Still the same basic sound, but Gerard would never do the intonation like that. It sounded tougher. Harder. Like he could and would hurt Pete if he was an intruder. The redness of his face from crying and the tears still spilling down his cheeks contrasted the way he presented himself to Pete. This was not the same man Pete had seen a minute ago.

"Alfred Winter," Pete replied using the pseudonym he used for this time period, raising his palms to show he meant no harm. "I'm here searching for Michael James Way." He smiled awkwardly, hoping the man who looked like Gerard would trust him and give him the information he needed.

"Why? How do you know him?" The man was still as skeptical as ever, glaring at Pete from the floor.

"I need to speak to him. I have a message," Pete said. Then noticing the uniform of the man on the floor, he added, "From the military."He had no idea what Mikey had told the people here about his past or if he was even in the military, but he needed to play it safe while still being believable. This was what he was used to from work and what he was the best at. He knew how to make people trust him and get the information he needed, even if he didn't know what to do with it once he had it.

"Why? What is it about?" The man said.

"i could ask you the same thing. I don't know who you are," Pete said. Usually that kind of thing made people relax, but the man in the corner only seemed to get more aggravated.

"I am Gerard Arthur Way and I'm here because my comrade just got killed defending a country he doesn't even live in. Didn't." 

So his name was also Gerard. How could this be? It definitely wasn't the same person as Pete had met, but it couldn't be a coincidence that they had the same name, same face, and same voice. 

Something had to be horribly wrong with the timeline, Pete realized. Two identical people with the same name didn't just appear, not at any point in history. There was no possible way that the universe could handle that, one person can't have two different lives. It was one or the other, and if Pete didn't fix this soon, the Gerard he knew and loved would be gone.

As he came back from that train of thought, the rest of this Gerard's words registered. Could his "comrade" be Mikey? If that was the case, why wouldn't he call him his brother? It would be safest to just play it dumb, Pete concluded.

"I'm so sorry for your loss, sir, but I need to find Michael James Way," Pete said quickly, before his hesitance seemed too suspicious.

The Gerard on the floor laughed at him. Oh fuck. "If you were from the military, would you not be in uniform?" Pete looked down at his clothes and opened his mouth to explain himself, but Gerard cut him off. "Even so, considering he has been dead for at least four hours now, I would think that you would have been notified that your message cannot be delivered if you really were here for that purpose. Now, explain yourself before I shout and let the others know that a spy has snuck into the medic tent."

"Gerard- Mikey is dead?" Pete said incredulously. His knees felt weak suddenly. His stomach started churning. 

"Don't call me by my first name. Explain yourself!"

"Oh fuck. Oh, fuck, Ger- sir, I come from the same place as Mikey, we... we knew each other, intimately so, he was my best friend. Is he really dead?" Pete said in a panic.

"What is your name?" Gerard asked him, his voice not nearly as threatening as it had been until that point. "I know it is not Alfred Winter. You would never be called Alfred, not with that face. What is your real name?"

Pete furrowed his brows. "Peter," he answered softly. "Peter Wentz."

"Pete?" Gerard asked. Pete nodded. "I know you."

"You- you do?" Pete said. He was pretty certain he had never met this Gerard, so did that mean there was another Pete, too, walking around in this timeline?

"Not personally, but through- through Mikey. Before he... before he died, he wrote you a letter, to explain. He started it a little lass than a year ago, when we first started training. It was the only thing keeping him sane at times, when I couldn't. Mikey... He could never shut up about you. He cares for you, deeply so. So for a year, I have known you, but you have not known me. And you do not know some things about Mikey, things that he has written pages and pages worth," Gerard spoke, letting himself relax more. Pete could see that he really cared about Mikey, the way he talked about him. "I wish you were here in time for him to give it to you himself. Better late than never, I guess," he continued, rummaging through the pockets of his uniform. When he finally found it and pulled it out, it was stained with blood in one corner. "Oh, excuse that. I'm afraid that keeping it clean was nearly impossible while I'm battling for my life."

Pete knew he should take pictures of the letter and read it later, that he should let the others back home know what had happened, but when Gerard handed it to him, calmly but with his hand still shaking from shock, Pete couldn't do anything but open it up and read it. Besides, he couldn't photograph it, not with Gerard right there. It was the last thing left of Mikey, now that he was gone, Pete realized sadly. When he had the paper completely unfolded and the words visible, Pete spent a second or two just admiring Mikey's handwriting. Of course, it wasn't as legible as it could have been, considering how rarely people in 2143 needed to write by hand, but Pete thought it was beautiful. He pictured Mikey sitting at their training camp somewhere, writing this, with the look he had when he got really concentrated on something on his face. 

Pete longed to be with him. He was supposed to be with him now, he was supposed to be talking directly to him at that moment, not reading the emotional equivalent of his last will. But the paper in his hands was the only communication with Mikey he could have now that he was dead. A tear started rolling down his cheek as he started reading. He read about Miss Lindsay Ballato and her generosity, about joining the Army and how lost Mikey felt, about seeing Gerard and being just as confused as Pete was when he first saw him, about Frank, Gerard's boyfriend, about chess matches, about Mikey's fear. 

God, Mikey was so strong. Pete could never do what he did. If it were Pete in his place, he probably would have been dead before he even got to Lindsey's house. Pete would have broken down and started crying the middle of that street and he would get hit by a truck and he would never enlist in the Army and the fact that Mikey did, the fact that he got through that, just absolutely blew his mind.

An in between all of this, Mikey had written that he had felt more than friendship for Pete. Pete's heart would be beating out of his chest if it weren't for the sorrow and grief holding him back. God, if only he had shown up a couple days earlier, if only they had figured out where he was sooner, he could still be alive, and after Mikey got back, after he recovered from what was surely a traumatic experience, maybe they could be together in the way that Pete had always dreamed.

But that would never happen. Because Mikey was dead. And now Pete would have to go back to his life knowing that Mikey wasn't ever coming back. The occasional tear rolling down Pete's cheek slowly evolved into full-out sobs, and he wiped his eyes as he read over the letter again, committing the words to memory as if he was going to lose those, too.

"It was all I could do not to read it after I found out he had died," Gerard told him, his voice wavering, too. "He wanted me to keep it private, to never read it, but I felt like I just needed to know what it said."

"You haven't read it though, right?" Pete said, trying to keep his voice as stable as possible. If Gerard had read it, he would know way too much and Pete would need to figure out what to do about that and he definitely did not have the energy to do that.

"No, I couldn't. I couldn't betray his loyalty like that," Gerard said, looking down at his feet.

Pete knew he needed to go, at least to communicate with the others back in 2143 that Mikey wasn't going to come back. "Did he die... honourably, at least? I guess peacefully is too much to hope for." 

"Yes. He was a great unofficial leader, he understood things way before any of the rest of us realized. He fought until the very end. I don't think we would have conquered if it weren't for him," Gerard told him. "Say, you knew Mikey well, right?"

"Yes," Pete answered, caught off-guard.

"And... you know a great deal about... where he comes from?"

"Yes."

"Are you... I mean, where he comes from- I suppose it's not so much of a _where_ as it is a _when_ , is it?"

Pete was totally taken aback by this. How did he know? Was he lying about not reading the letter? Did Mikey do anything to tell him? It didn't specify anything in the letter about that, and Mikey surely would have written that in there if he had. 

His silence must have been enough of an answer, because Gerard went on. "I always imagined that it would be possible. It had to be. How could it not, you know? And me and Mikey... there's got to be something more between us. In a fraternal sense. Is there, that you know of?" He asked, his voice soft.

Pete didn't know what to do. If Gerard knew already, was there any more harm in answering his questions? He had already implicitly confirmed what Gerard was saying, and he wasn't stupid, he wouldn't think that the absence of an answer was an automatic no. "You were brothers. Are brothers," Pete answered. What did it matter? Mikey was dead anyway. It felt like nothing in the universe could make it feel any worse. "There's another Gerard. Back home, two hundred years in the future."

"Really?" Gerard's eyes lit up with interest. "What's he like?"

Pete chuckled. "He's like you in a lot of ways. But you're different in others. You've got this, like, tough exterior, and he kind of wears his heart on his sleeve, but you're both really sensitive on the inside. He's an artist. He paints beautifully. And he's my best friend."

Gerard nodded thoughtfully. "But how are there two of us?"

Pete hesitated. "I don't know. But there's not supposed to be. It can't work like that, messing with time is really serious, and one of Tim's rules is that there's only supposed to be one identical person, object, event, whatever, for every timeline. And right now, having two Gerards is definitely screwing something up. I really shouldn't be telling you this, people from the Past are only supposed to have knowledge about their time period or earlier, but I honestly don't know what's going to happen to you, and I'm really, really, sorry, but if it comes down to you or the Gerard in my time period, I'm going to do the selfish thing and go with him."

Gerard stayed silent for a while. "I think I'm okay with that," he spoke after he thought about it.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. If that's what needs to happen, I don't blame you for it."

"That's good. That's really good. Thank you for your generosity. I really need to go. Let the others know that he isn't coming back," Pete replied.

"Wait," Gerard interrupted. "Can I ask you a question? About the future?"

Pete almost considered telling him no, but he figured he deserved to know whatever he wanted to know, especially since Pete may be deleting him from existence soon. He smiled. "Sure, go ahead."

Gerard took a deep breath. "How does the War end?" He asked.

"In our timeline, the one that doesn't involve Mikey going back two hundred years? We win. We liberate the people stuck in the camps. We issue pardons to the populations affected. We acknowledge that what we did to all those people was horrible and should never be done again," Pete told him. 

Gerard nodded hopefully. "Can I ask one more?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"Being... men. Who feel that way for other men. Does it get better?"

Pete smiled. "So much better."

"Really?"

"Really. In two hundred years, it's not even considered a big deal anymore. You can see men out with their husbands on a romantic walk in the park, holding hands, just like you would see a man and woman. You can mention your boyfriend at work and no one bats an eye. It's beautiful.'

Gerard smiled, like he couldn't help it. "Thank you."

"No problem. Good,bye, Gerard," Pete said, reaching to look at his Communicator to start programming his journey home. He hadn't sent a single message to the guys back home, they were probably worried sick that they had lost Pete, too. 

"Goodbye, Pete," Gerard said, and Pete flashed him one last smile as he punched in the numbers and disappeared from 2143.

-

"He's just arrived safely," Brendon reported from his screen. They were in one of Flasch's tech rooms, with some of Brendon's tech engineers and Patrick's Travellers as support. The atmosphere in the room was tense, anticipatory, but visually, everyone was just at their desk, looking at a screen projected in front of them. Everybody except Gerard, who was allowed to be there as long as his presence didn't get in anybody's way.

"Is he in the right place?" Patrick asked, sitting in a chair next to Brendon, eyeing the data he was reading.

"Yes, I believe so."

"Is he saying anything?"

'No, not yet."

"That would name sense," Patrick said. "If I'm correct, he should be in the medic's tent, or at least somewhere near it. There's a high chance there are people around."

"So what do we do then? We just wait until no one's around him?" Gerard asked from his chair in the corner of the room, out of the way of everyone who needed to be looking at screens and data.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. There's nothing to do unless he tells us he needs something," Patrick answered, running his hands through his hair. Everyone in the room was stressed. This was their chance to fix everything that had went wrong with the company in the past year. Patrick knew at the back of his mind that if this didn't work, they would be back at ground zero, and the company probably wouldn't want to pay them to keep going. He would lose his job, the thing he was the most passionate about, and not to mention how tragic it would be to see Gerard and Pete lose all that hope they had. 

Gerard, back in his chair, pulled his legs up to his chest and hugged them with his arms. His heart felt like it was beating out of his chest. The anticipation was killing him. He listened to the ticking of the clock on the wall for a while, but eventually the noise became unbearable. Desperate to break the silence, he asked, "Do we have any information about where he is other than what he tells us? Like, do we get to see if he moves?"

"No, we only can receive information via Greypath," Brendon explained. "It's the only wavelength that can travel through time. He writes us something in 1943, and it comes to us in 2143, but we can also send it back in time. It's truly fascinating, what it can do, and we don't really fully understand it yet, but-" 

"Sir? Something's wrong. Like, really fucking wrong," one of Brendon's tech people interrupted from where she was monitoring the timeline. Brendon immediately got out of his seat and looked at her screen. Gerard craned his neck to see what she was pointing at. The timeline, usually a relatively straight line, had a weird oval shape superimposed on top of it, from one end, the one that was constantly changing, which Gerard assumed to be the present, to the spot marked as 1943.

"Fuck," Brendon breathed. "What the fuck is that?"

"The parallel between now and then, sir, it's totally just gone haywire. The balance- it's been screwed up or something."

"How long has that been there?" Brendon asked, his brows furrowed.

"I don't know, we haven't looked at a linear view of the timeline for at least a couple of months now. We mostly just used the Pondometer to look for Michael."

"No one thought to look at the other views, just to check?" Brendon asked, looking around the room as if to let everyone know hey were being punished for this. When no one looked up from where they were typing furiously, presumably to Pete to try and figure out what was up, he decided it wasn't worth it. "Okay, so what could have caused this? How do we fix it?"

Patrick spoke up from the other side of the girl. "Probably Mikey's presence in a time he doesn't belong in for so long. He's not supposed to be there, and if he was creating disturbances there, the events that happened in the time he was there would be all wrong. Things could happen when they weren't supposed to, people who don't belong could show up-"

"We need to delete the entire connection. Think about it. If we cut it off there," the engineer pointed to the oval on the timeline, "Everything Michael did will be erased."

"But so will Pete and Mikey themselves, if they don't get back in time," another engineer argued.

"How long do we have before we really need to cut the tie?" Brendon asked.

"Not long. Five minutes, max."

"Fuck," Patrick breathed. He looked at Gerard. "You following this?"

Gerard nodded. "Kinda," he said. 

"You understand that we may have to-"

"Yes. And I don't like it, but if it's what you have to do, then..." Gerard trailed off. He wasn't going to argue that they let the whole universe collapse on itself so that Mikey wouldn't be deleted from existence. 

Patrick nodded. "Are we sending things to Pete? Anything? Is he talking?"

"We've been messaging him loads of stuff, sir. He's not responding to any of it." A Traveller called out. 

"Fuck!" Patrick cursed.

"If Pete doesn't show up soon, we really need to close this," an engineer called out.

"We know," Brendon rolled his eyes. "Sorry," he added, as an afterthought, but not sounding as if he were really that apologetic. Gerard didn't blame him. It was really stressful. Gerard could only imagine what it would be like if he were the one whose actions could dictate how successful they were.

"Can I just say that Pete was always such a pleasure to work with, and that he always put a smile on our faces-" someone sytarted saying.

"He's not gone yet, shut up," Patrick said through gritted teeth, eyeing the spot where Pete would reappear, as if trying to make it happen out of sheer will.

"I have to close this in ten, nine, eight..."

"Come on, Pete!" Brendon shouted, slamming his fist on a desk.

"... Seven, six, five," the woman's voice continued despite Brendon's outburst. Gerard closed his eyes. he didn't want to see this. "Four, three, two..."

For the last few counts, there was complete silence other than her voice. Then came a single tap of a screen that communicated everything that had just been lost.

"One," she added, unnecessarily. Gerard kept his eyes closed. He didn't want to open them, to face the reality. Not only was Mikey gone, but the one person who got him through his loss was, too. He was completely alone now. 

The silence in the room continued for what must have been only sixty seconds at most but felt like a lifetime. It was interrupted by the sound of shoes hitting the floor, and then a body falling to the ground. Gerard opened his eyes out of shock, but what greeted his sight was not what he expected at all. He actually had to blink a few times to make sure that what he was seeing was really there and not some trick of the light.

On the ground, in an antiquated military uniform, was Mikey. 

He hadn't seen his face in a year, and dear God, did it feel good to see it again. 

"Everyone else sees him too, right?" Brendon asked, laughing, as if he didn't believe it himself.

Gerard didn't answer, he got out of his chair and slowly walked over to where his brother was collapsed on the floor. No one else made a move, they let Gerard be the one to see him first.

He wasn't even halfway across the floor when Mikey stuck his helmet-covered head and said, "I'm okay," with his goofy voice that was like music to Gerard's ears in that moment.

"Mikey?" Gerard said as he continued walking towards his brother.

"Gee? Fuck, other-you's voice sounded so much different," Mikey said. Gerard ignored what Mikey said and tackled Mikey in a tight hug. "Oh fuck, it totally is you, Gee. God, I missed you," Mikey said, a warm grin spreading across his face. He couldn't remember the last time he felt good enough inside to smile, to really smile like everything in the world was alright.

In a way, it was. His big brother was there to save him, just like always, ever since they were kids. 

"Mikey," Gerard said, tears of joy running down his cheek. "I thought I lost you. I thought I would never see my baby brother again."

"I know, I know," Mikey said, holding Gerard tight. "It was so hard without you being there for me. I knew you would save me. I knew it."

Patrick cleared his through from where he was standing, near the two brothers. "I hate to interrupt, really, but there's still some work to be done. For starters, we don't know where Pete is or why Mikey's here now."

Mikey looked up. "What? You guys don't know why I'm here? Why didn't you mention that?"

"You were kind of busy reuniting with your brother after living two hundred years in the past for a year," Brendon said. 

"And what's this about Pete?" Mikey asked, brows furrowed in worry, ignoring Brendon's comment. 

"Okay, so uh," Gerard started, then seemed at a loss for words. He realized he probably wasn't the most equipped person to explain to Mikey what was going on. He looked to Patrick, who quickly took over.

"Pete went to go rescue you. We haven't heard from him since he arrived. Something is horribly wrong with the timeline so we had to delete the link between now and then, which would theoretically kill off you and Pete, if you were sill there when we did it. But somehow you're here and Pete isn't. There is a likelihood that Pete isn't coming back, but there's still a chance that he's out there, and we want to find him," Patrick explained, tapping around on a screen but not seeming to accomplish anything.

"Oh," Mikey said, quietly. "Well, the fact that I died would probably bring me back here if you deleted the link."

Gerard's eyebrows flew up. "You _died_?"

"Yeah, I died in combat. It was fucking horrific and the fact that I'm here now, that I'm alive makes my skin crawl, but I'm thinking I'm gonna save that for therapy." He looked to Patrick. "Flasch covers therapy, right? Cause I'm gonna need a ton of that."

Brendon snorted at Mikey's joke. After realizing that no one else found it funny due to how Mikey just revealed that he fucking died, he put on a more serious face. "Right, okay, so that would explain why you came back, I guess. But is Pete alive, and if so, where is he?"

"Did I hear my name?" Pete's voice came from the corner of the room, joking but not light-hearted in the slightest. Everyone in the room's heads turned to look at him. Everyone, including Mikey, whose gaze he caught. "Oh fuck. Wait, what?" He said incredulously. "How is he-"

"Pete, you fuck, why weren't you answering your messages?" Brendon asked, some heat in his voice but not enough to mask the relief at knowing Pete was safe.

"Because Mikey was fucking dead and Gerard was there, mourning the loss of his best friend, but it wasn't this Gerard, it was like a whole other person, except not!" Pete defended himself.

"It's fine, Pete," Gerard reassured him. "You just scared us a lot. The um, the timeline fucked up, and they had to, like, erase something and you might have gotten erased too if you were still in 1943. We were scared that happened."

"So to sum everything up, Mikey being in the past or so long kept creating all of these inconsistencies in the timeline to a point where shit got really weird, like Gerard showing up, and Pete going to get Mikey fucked that up even more, presumably because Pete was telling Gerard shit, and so we had to delete the link before it was too late and the universe imploded on itself, which would have killed Mikey and Pete, but because Mikey was already dead and Pete got out of there fast enough or something, they're both back here," Brendon explained, exasperated. "Does that clear everything up?"

Pete nodded. "I still haven't had the chance to give my best friend Mikey Way a hug, though," he pointed out.

Mikey grinned and opened his arms. When they hugged, Mikey whispered "I thought about you every day," into his ear.

"Me too," Pete whispered back. "Fuck, Mikes. I missed you so much."

"I know," Mikey whispered back, "I promise I won't do that to you ever again," he said as tears started rolling down his cheek and he cried into Pete's hair. 

He was back. Everything was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOOBOY this chapter is almost 5k words and i wrote it all within the past week. honestly its probably my favourite part of this fic and i hope i did it justice. im unsure if i want to do another chapter after this or just go right ahead to the prologue but this is it!!! im finally reaching the end of this fic that ive been working on for the past almost year and a half!!!! it honestly has been such a pleasure to write and i fucking LOVE these characters like gerard??? hes so lovely i would die for him asjkngvbsd anyways hope u enjoyed reading!!!!!


	25. Chapter 25

After Mikey's arrival in 2043, Gerard wanted nothing more than to hang out with his little brother forever and never let him go again.

Unfortunately, that was far from possible. Mikey was busy most hours of the day, being interrogated and interviewed and going to therapy. When he got home, he just crashed on Pete's couch and he was up again in the morning without saying more then as couple of sentences to Gerard or Pete. 

Gerard understood that Mikey was severely traumatized from being left two hundred years in the past for an entire year, and that he was doing very important work on behalf of the entire Earth, but it wasn't easy for Gerard either. The majority of the details Gerard knew about Mikey's trip were from filmed interviews Mikey did with the global press. Again, Gerard completely understood that reliving what he had had to experience was not ideal for him, but Gerard wanted to know what Mikey was doing while he was worrying about never seeing him again.

One evening, however, Mikey showed up at the house earlier than usual. Pete was out on a jog, but Gerard was putting some finishing touches on a commission. Mikey came into the room where his brother was painting and leaned on the doorway, watching Gerard paint. It was truly mesmerizing, it was almost as if you could see his mind working, trying to analyze what he had already put onto the canvas and how to improve on it.

Gerard was so preoccupied by his art that he didn't notice that Mikey was there until he stopped to stretch his arms. When he saw his brother in the doorway, he froze. "Oh, hey, sorry. Didn't see you there."

"It's okay. I like watching you paint. Your technique has really changed since I last saw a painting of yours. I like it, it's stunning," Mikey explained, a slight smirk on his face. Gerard had missed that look, one that anyone else wouldn't notice, but to Gerard, it meant that Mikey truly meant what he was saying. Gerard returned the smile.

"Yeah, uh. I used it as an outlet a lot while you were... away. They sell for a lot more now, although that's probably just 'cause everyone wants a painting from the guy who disappeared's brother," he shrugged.

"Oh my god, Gee, you haven't changed a bit. You're fucking talented! Look at this!" He gestured to the painting Gerard was working on. "It's fantastic! Sure, me being on global news probably contributed, but people are finally realizing how amazing these paintings are, and that's what motivates them to buy. Not me. You," Mikey said.

Gerard blushed at the compliment. "Thank you," he said genuinely. "What have you been up to today? You're home early, and no offence, but you're in a better mood than I've seen you in since you first came back."

"Oh, I just had a meeting at the headquarters. I hung out in the Centre for a bit but there wasn't really anything going on and people kept looking at me weird. Things are definitely slowing down, though. I used to have people actually ask for autographs, and I can't remember the last day I had only a meeting to do. I thought I'd maybe hang out with my big brother a bit. It's been a while since we've had time to and I miss him a lot," Mikey admitted. 

A slow smile spread across Gerard's face. This was the confirmation he needed that Mikey still cared about him, that he hadn't forgotten about him. "Yeah, absolutely! Let me just, uh-" he gestured, indicating that he needed to clean up before they went anywhere.

"You can finish up whatever you're doing, I'm not in a rush," Mikey said. "Is the Leathermouth still open, do you know?"

"Didn't we go there the night before... you know?" Gerard said, hesitant to go back there, considering Mikey was still recovering from what had happened after the last time they were there.

"Yeah, I still want to go back. Get some closure, you know? Plus, it was one of Pete's favourite places to go. I don't want to let anything get in the way of enjoying ourselves there," Mikey explained. 

Gerard shrugged. Mikey's explanation seemed reasonable enough. "Then I'm pretty sure it would still be open."

"Great. Once you're done, wanna do my makeup? For old times sake?" Mikey asked hopefully.

"Why not?" Gerard replied, then dipped his paintbrush back into the paint. Mikey stayed where he was. "You're still gonna watch me?"

"If that's okay, yeah" Mikey replied. Gerard shrugged and continued painting. 

-

When they arrived at the bar, it looked pretty much the same as it did last time they were there. Mikey didn't know what he was expecting, but his life was so different from when they were there last that maybe the bar was supposed to be different, too. But no, the loud music and bright lights were the almost exactly the same as they were last time. 

As Mikey ordered them drinks, Gerard surveyed the room. There were people dancing to the music, there were people talking and laughing with each other. The atmosphere seemed pretty friendly in the bar, several of the people talking with each other didn't necessarily seem like they had known each other beforehand. Gerard wondered if he would end up chatting with somebody he wouldn't otherwise have met. 

It was then that Mikey came back with their drinks, holding them awkwardly like he always did. You would think it wasn't that difficult for one man to hold two drinks, but Mikey's stupidly big hands and long arms made it a little difficult. Still, the biggest factor was probably actually just because he was an awkward guy. He passed a drink to Gerard and they took a sip together. Immediately, Gerard felt almost like he needed to spit it out, but he swallowed it anyways.

"Jesus, that is really horrible," he laughed.

Mikey made a similar face of disgust. "Yeah, their drinks haven't gotten any better."

"Why does Pete like this place so much if the drinks are so horrible?"

"Somehow he finds it in himself to not immediately barf when he comes into contact with them," Mikey shrugged. "And plus, it's probably more about the place itself than the drinks."

"Yeah, from what I could tell, people seem pretty friendly here," Gerard said.

They kept talking for a while, Gerard explained his latest idea for some non-commission work, which Mikey really liked the concept of. Gradually, they nursed their drinks, since Mikey already paid for them. Really, it wasn't so bad when you were drinking them with someone else. It gave them something to laugh about.

Eventually, though, someone walked in the bar who caught both of the brothers' attention almost instantly. Gerard's, because he was ridiculously hot. He was just Gerard's type: dark, handsome and tattooed. He had the slightest feeling he had seen him somewhere before. Whatever that was, he wanted to see him again. The stranger headed over to the bar, and Gerard studied his motions very carefully as he ordered a drink. He was the most perfect man Gerard had ever seen in his life.

Mikey, on the other hand, was stunned to see him, because that was Frank Iero, right in front of him, in 2143. He hadn't considered that people other than Gerard had Travelled in time. That would be something important to bring up to the Headquarters, but for now, he wanted to see where this went. When he looked at Gerard's expression, he could tell that the feelings Gerard had for Frank didn't stay in 1934. It kind of creeped Mikey out that it was his brother's sex life he was seeing unfold, but it wasn't the first time it had happened. Frank and Gerard made a really good couple, and the fact that they had another chance to be together made Mikey feel so happy for the both of them. 

"You see the guy with the tattoos at 11 o'clock?" Mikey said discreetly to Gerard, even though he knew the answer. Actually, 'see' was a bit of an understatement. Gerard was not being discrete at all with the way he was looking at Frank. "You should talk to him," Mikey advised, stating the obvious once again.

"What? Oh, him?" Gerard feigned innocence. Mikey almost burst out laughing at that. 

"Seriously, Gee. He's just your type," Mikey emphasized.

"Yeah, maybe. This was supposed to be our night to hang out, though..." Gerard responded, not taking his eyes off Frank.

"We have all the time in the world to hang out. Go get that man," Mikey said.

"I don't know what to do, though! How am I going to approach him?" Gerard panicked as Mikey watched Frank take a sip of his drink and grimace.

"Go talk about the weird drinks here. Just do it, I'm sure you'll hit it off fine," Mikey encouraged him, and seriously, if they didn't go up to each other soon, Mikey might just grab Gerard by the hand to get him to finally talk to Frank.

Gerard hesitated for a second, to which Mikey gave him a disappointed but encouraging look. Finally, Gerard said, "Okay, fine," and went off to talk to the stranger.

Mikey watched Gerard speak to Frank. He couldn't hear what he was saying, so he relied on their facial expressions to tell what was going on. When Gerard finished saying something for the first time, Mikey watched Frank's face very carefully. It took a few seconds for him to react, and in those few seconds, Mikey held his breath. Was this Gerard's awkwardness going to ruin the relationship of these two people who were clearly destined for each other? Finally, though, Frank smiled, and Mikey exhaled. Of course Frank could never be put off by Gerard's manner when he was the exact same way himself. He watched Frank say something back and Gerard laugh in response. Gerard looked back at Mikey to see him smiling slightly. Mikey met his gaze and Gerard motioned for him to come over, so he took the last sip of his drink and left it on the bar as he walked over to where they were chatting. 

"He your boyfriend?" He heard Frank ask as he came within earshot. He could hear the underlying disappointment in Frank's voice. Luckily, Gerard was one oblivious motherfucker, so he didn't even realize the implications of the question. 

"God, no. Mikey's my brother," he explained as Mikey waved to Frank.

"Oh, nice. I'm Frank," he waved back. "I feel like I've seen you somewhere before, I have no idea where though."

"Nowhere," Gerard said instantly. "Mikey's just your average dude."

"Oh. I guess it must have been someone else," Frank shook his head. "I was just telling Gerard about the project I'm working on. I work for a historical society, we're recovering music from the late 20th century. Back when it was on physical copies, you know? I used to want to be a musician when I was a kid, so this is really something that I love doing. Just today we dug out some stuff by this artist, David Bowie, and it's fascinating how music that's so old can be so captivating."

"Yeah, I've heard of him. I've always wanted to listen to what kind of stuff he made," Gerard said, his eyes not leaving Frank's. It was honestly adorable how lovestruck he was, but Mikey didn't necessarily want to watch all of this unfold. 

"Yeah, that sounds really interesting. Music is kind of the one thing that stays relevant, right? No matter what, society will always need music," Mikey added. 

"Exactly! A lot of my colleagues tend to under-emphasize the arts, but I feel that they're just as important, if not more important than politics and whatnot when you study history," Frank exclaimed. 

"I'm sure Gerard can tell you all about art, he's an artist himself," Mikey said. "I'll leave you to it." He went back to his corner of the bar, where someone quickly struck up a conversation with him. He half-listened to the woman with the dangling earrings talking to him, diverting his attention to Frank and Gerard, who were getting closer and closer to each other. Normally, he hated watching people like that in bars, but he knew that Gerard and Frank would be more than a friendly one-night stand. He knew how perfect they were together, and he wanted to ensure that they had the chance to make each other happy in the long term. 

Once he was sure that they were sticking with each other for the night, Mikey allowed himself to socialize with other people a bit more. He really wasn't an extrovert, but every once in a while, it was nice to chat with new people. Plus, none of the people seemed to recognize him from the news, or if they did, they didn't ask him about it, for which he was grateful. 

About an hour later, Mikey was feeling a little bit tired of listening and talking, when Gerard approached him, Frank standing nearby. 

"Hey, so um," he began. "Frank is gonna... uh, show me his music at his apartment and I'm gonna stay over. I'll be home tomorrow, so... bye," he said nervously. Mikey would have rolled his eyes if it wouldn't embarrass Gerard and potentially make him not want to go out with him again. 

"Alright, have fun. And stay safe," was what he said instead. Gerard blushed and turned to head out the door. As he walked, he took Frank's hand into his own. Mikey smiled to himself again. He was really looking forward to how happy they made each other. 

Mikey left not long after Gerard and Frank did. All in all, it was a really nice night. Even if they didn't talk to each other that much, he felt as if he had repaired his and Gerard's relationship. Plus, Gerard got to meet Frank again, which also meant that Mikey would have the chance to befriend him again, which would be nice. Frank was really easy to talk to and Mikey couldn't help but feel he missed him.

When he got home, Pete was asleep on the couch. It wasn't that late, so Pete probably hadn't been asleep that long, so Mikey felt like he should wake him up. Plus, Mikey needed to sleep on that couch later that night, and he would prefer if it were Pete-less. He tapped the bit of his shoulder that was exposed by his tank top. Pete stirred and Mikey poked his shoulder again, more insistent this time. Pete brought his hands up to shield his eyes from the light and made a sound that sounded a bit like 'what?'.

"You fell asleep on the couch, dumbass," Mikey told him. Pete muttered something incoherent. "Come on, let's get you to bed," Mikey replied.

"Oh. Mikeyway," Pete said sleepily.

"Yeah. Now get in your own bed, fuckhead," Mikey insisted. Pete made an 'Okay' sound and started to get up from the couch.

"Mikeyway. I miss you," Pete mumbled.

"I'm right here, Pete," Mikey said, though he knew what Pete probably meant.

"No. I miss talking with you," Pete said as he started walking down the hallway, an arm around Mikey's shoulder for support. 

"I miss talking with you too, Pete. I'm sorry I've been neglecting you. I really do care about you," Mikey said honestly.

"Sleep in my bed?" Pete asked. Mikey looked back though the hallway to the couch, and then back at the doorway to Pete's room. Pete's bed would definitely be more comfortable than the couch Mikey would sleep on every night, since he couldn't get his own place and Pete only had two bedrooms. Plus, he felt a bit like he owed it to Pete after never talking to each other. 

"Sure," Mikey shrugged. As they got to Pete's room, Pete collapsed immediately on the bed. Mikey followed suit right after, careful to avoid Pete's limbs. Although, they weren't exactly fragile-looking. Evidently, Pete had been working out, and Mikey couldn't deny that he looked good.

Pete was already so asleep that he didn't even pull the blanket over him. Instead, Mikey did it for the both of them. When it hit Pete's skin, he hummed his thanks. "I'm so glad you're back," Pete mumbled.

"I'm glad too," Mikey replied. He didn't know if Pete heard it in his state, but it didn't really matter. For once, he actually felt like he was back home, like everything was going to go on just fine. For once, he was excited to see what the future held, instead of being afraid of it. This, he thought, is recovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OHHH BOYYY this is such a weird fic and i apologize but this is the last ~official~ chapter! sorry it took so long to get out lmao. next is the epilogue and then its DONE! thank u so much for reading and for embarking on this journey with me. this fic took literally 2 years to write and i didnt love the whole Process but im really proud to have written it. thank you <3
> 
> also i got rid of the weird chapter title things where it would show up as like "chapter 25: chapter twenty five" bc i didnt know how ao3 worked dont bully me


	26. Epilogue

Over the next few months, Mikey slowly rebuilt his relationship with Pete. As his days got less and less busy and the commotion died down, he found that he had more time to spend time with both his housemates. For convenience, he started sleeping in Pete's bed every night. As his life settled down and he had the time and energy to start a relationship with Pete, he wanted to take things slow, and Pete was aware of that. The most they ever did at night was cuddle and had the occasional midnight conversation about whatever was on their minds. Somehow, it felt even more intimate than anything Mikey had ever done with anybody else. 

Frank and Gerard started going out officially about two weeks after they met in the bar. Frank would hang out in the apartment sometimes, and he had the same taste as the rest in videos and music and art. The four of them got along really nicely, better than anything Mikey could have expected.

One night, Gerard was out on a date with Frank, and Mikey and Pete were sprawled on the couch, a mess of Mikey's bony limbs and Pete's more toned ones, watching animations projected from Mikey's Messenger. It was a typical evening for the both of them. Earlier, they had cooked themselves a dish that Pete's mother used to make when he was young for dinner. Cooking together was another thing they loved doing whenever they had the time. Neither of them were particularly good at it, and Pete had a tendency to spill anything that came in a powder, which would make Mikey sneeze uncontrollably, which then would make Pete laugh and spill some more, and the cycle would continue. Somehow the meals always came out edible, and sometimes, they were surprisingly good. Although, maybe that was just because they knew how much work had gone into making it and they just forced themselves to appreciate it.

Now, though, Mikey was trying to escape Pete's grip as they wrestled playfully. The video was completely forgotten, and they couldn't even listen if they wanted to, because they were laughing so loudly. After a few minutes, the projection turned itself off, sensing that it wasn't being watched anymore. Finally, Pete got Mikey down on the ground, pinning him down and counting to ten like in actual wrestling match as Mikey kicked his calves. Once he got to ten, he planted a kiss to Mikey's mouth, and Mikey kissed back as he stopped kicking. Pete let go of his wrists, knowing that the game was over and not wanting to make Mikey feel unsafe. When Pete went to pull away, Mikey pulled his head back down to kiss him some more. 

Pete was definitely the best kisser Mikey had ever had the pleasure of kissing. Not that the list was long at all, Mikey could count the people he had kissed on one hand, but Pete knew just how to match Mikey's rhythm, he knew just when to let Mikey control what was going on and when to take control himself. Pete would kiss him like it was a promise: a promise to love him, to always be there for him, to keep going. Every time, Mikey felt like he was walking on the fucking moon.

Mikey tried to return the love he was feeling in the way he kissed Pete. He cupped his jaw with his right hand, rubbing circles right under his cheekbone, feeling the stubble there. His other hand rested on Pete's back, feeling the warmth of his skin through his shirt. When Pete pulled away slightly for air, he could feel him smile and couldn't help but smile too. 

Pete was more aggressive when he reconnected their lips, biting and pulling and letting Mikey sick his tongue in his mouth. He hummed when Mikey moved his hand lower to get under his shirt to scratch at his back. Mikey's other hand moved to Pete's head to clutch at his hair, which Pete always had a thing for. Even if they had never done anything below the belt, they still knew a lot about each others' bodies from times like these where they ended up just breaking apart. When that happened, Pete was never visibly disappointed, though Mikey felt a little guilty that he still wasn't ready.

Now, though, something was different. Maybe it was the time of night, maybe it was what they had done right before, maybe it was just that Mikey was finally ready, but Mikey didn't hesitate to press his hips up into Pete's thigh, letting Pete feel his half hard dick. Pete responded by grinding his own hips down. Mikey could tell he was just about as hard as he was. 

It felt fantastic, but Mikey's neck was starting to ache from being on the hard floor with nothing supporting his head. When Pete broke apart again, Mikey asked, "Can we take this to the bedroom?" Pete looked like he had to take a moment to come back to reality and register what Mikey said, but a few seconds later he replied "yeah", and got off of Mikey. When he was standing up again, he reached a hand out for Mikey to take to help him off the floor, which Mikey gratefully accepted. 

Together, they went off into the bedroom. Really, it was their bedroom now, seeing as how they both slept in it every night. Even if they could get a place with another bedroom, Mikey would still probably sleep with Pete. Really, it was just that Mikey didn't know if he deserved to call the bedroom his yet, like he hadn't earned it. "What is there to earn?" Pete would ask him when he would bring it up a few hours later that night. Mikey wouldn't have an answer for him. 

They both immediately fell onto the bed again, Pete on top and Mikey beneath him. As soon as Mikey's back hit the mattress, Pete's mouth was on his neck. Mikey gasped loudly, pulling at Pete's hair as he mouthed at a place right below his ear, licking and sucking before moving onto the next spot. Mikey shoved his hips against Pete's again, this time more demanding and desperate. Pete moved against him in response, moaning quietly into his neck. His hands started trailing down Mikey's sides, reaching up his shirt again once he got to the bottom. Mikey's hands grabbed at Pete's back, eventually shifting down to his ass. Pete moved from Mikey's neck to his mouth, kissing him desperately, giving him everything he had. 

"Can I touch you?" He asked, hands pausing at Mikey's hips. Mikey honestly could not remember the last time he or anyone else had touched his own dick for pleasure. When he was in the past, he didn't feel any need to, and when he came back, the desire to do it himself wasn't really there anymore. But now, the thought of Pete touching him seemed irresistible. Mikey nodded eagerly, trying to make sure that Pete got the message because his mouth felt too dry to speak. As close as they were to each other, Pete must have understood because he started undoing Mikey's pants, hands fumbling. 

It was endearing, seeing Pete was nervous, too. When Pete struggled to open a button for the fourth time, Mikey moved his hands away and did it on the first try. Pete looked up at him and gave him that stupid Pete grin that Mikey adored, then cupped Mikey's dick through his clothes, still smiling at him. Mikey let out a gasp. He never thought of the grin as seductive, but in that moment, the adjective described it so surprisingly well. He couldn't help but lean in to Pete's touch, wanting more. Pete reattached their lips as he slid his hands under Mikey's underwear and wrapped a hand around his cock for real. 

Mikey shuddered as he felt Pete's hand take its time touching him, not going too fast, just letting Mikey process the feeling. He forgot how good it felt to be touched like this, to feel someone else's touch. He had trouble keeping up with Pete's mouth, focusing his attention on the feeling. The fact that it was Pete doing this to him made it so much more intense. He trusted Pete with everything. 

"Fuck, Mikey," Pete groaned in his ear, still jacking him off lazily. "I wanna do everything with you. Anything you want, any possible combination of the things we could do. I want it all."

Mikey shuddered with arousal. He knew Pete meant every word he was saying and he couldn't agree more. He wanted to fuck over the counter, to suck Pete off in the shower, to make out for hours on their bed and slowly touch each other till they came. Whatever Pete was willing to do, he wanted to do it. "You can have it," Mikey gasped as Pete brushed his thumb over his tip. 

"Not just sex things, too. I wanna spend my life with you. I wanna do everything in my power to make you happy," Pete continued. Mikey whimpered in response, and Pete kissed him. Mikey was too far gone to move his mouth, his jaw dropping open and his eyes half closed as he moved his hips to get the perfect amount of friction from Pete's hand, almost as if he didn't realize he was doing it. Pete continued licking at his mouth, sucking and pulling at his lips with his teeth sloppily, hand still all over Mikey's dick. He listened to every sound Mikey made, committing it to his memory. Pete's own pants were getting tight, but he chose to ignore the ache in his dick in favour of getting Mikey off.

Eventually, Mikey's back arched up and his hand clenched Pete's arm even tighter. "I love you," he whispered as he came all over Pete's hand. Pete stroked him through it, letting go when he could tell the oversensitivity was starting to get painful. He lifted his hand to his mouth and licked Mikey's come off it as he rearranged their legs so he could grind his aching dick against Mikey's leg without accidentally touching his dick. 

"D'you want me to- oh," Mikey said as he realized what Pete was doing. 

"Yeah," Pete responded, finally getting some release. "This okay?" he added when he realized he hadn't asked. 

"It's more than okay," Mikey said. "You're so hot."

"Yeah? Can you feel me?" Pete asked, breathing heavily. 

"Yeah," Mikey answered. 

"You get me so hard," Pete said, and maybe it was kind of cheesy, but Mikey couldn't help but blush. "Only you, Mikes. Never felt this way before about anyone. Never wanted to have this kind of- ah, of commitment. I fucking love you," he said. Moments later, his hips stilled and he collapsed, completely spent, on top of Mikey.

"Um," Mikey said after a few moments, pushing Pete slightly to the side. 

"Yeah, I know, I know," Pete said, getting up. "Jeez, way to ruin my afterglow."

"It was already ruined. I could barely breathe, you're so heavy."

"Not my fault you're skinny as hell," Pete laughed, standing up and kissing Mikey's forehead. He took off his pants and underwear to replace them with a new pair. 

"How long's it been since you last came in your pants? Like ten years?" Mikey teased as he tucked his dick back into his pants, not bothering to zip them back up. He watched Pete undress from his comfy spot on the bed, smiling to himself in the way he does when no one is there to see him. 

"Shut up, you were totally into it," Pete laughed. 

"You're right, I can't complain," Mikey conceded. "Now come back here. Apparently I've ruined your afterglow and I wanna make it up to you."

"I dunno if I want to get back in bed with you after you made fun of me for my sexual practices," Pete joked, sliding under the covers anyway with new underwear on. 

"I'm like 90 pounds, if you really have that much of a problem with me you could totally just fight me. You'd easily win," Mikey said, throwing his arm over Pete.

"But then I run the risk of ruining your pretty face," Pete complained. He tangled his legs with Mikey's under the sheets. "Never thought you would be the cuddly type, Mikey Way."

"Never thought you would be the come-in-your-pants type, but you learn something new every day," Mikey replied. 

"One more joke like that and I will actually kick your ass," Pete said.

"Okay, fine," Mikey said. "I love you."

"I love you too," Pete replied. "Sweet dreams, Mikes"

"Goodnight."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAND IT'S DONE!!! thank you all so much for reading & im sorry this took so long to finish! i had some things go on in my personal life and i just couldn't write at all but im doing way better now! im so glad to have finally got this done after 2 whole years! thank you all so much again <3


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